And There Was Me And You
by saphronandspice
Summary: A mostly Tina/Artie-centric fic, starring all of the Glee club. Starts in Episode 9, Wheels, but doesn't stick to the show's storylines exactly.   It's going to be rough, but at least they've got each other.
1. Chapter 1

For Bubbles, and for Anya.

A/N: So, here is the story that is currently taking up 66 pages (and counting, I'm not finished) of a word document on my computer. There will be laughter, tears, pregnancy (and not just Quinn's, so be warned), singing and dancing from this dysfunctional Glee-family that we love so much; so hold on to your hats.

Disclaimer: I don't own Glee, or any song mentioned in this fic.

* * *

Tina Cohen-Chang didn't know what she had been expecting. She hadn't, obviously, been expecting a bunch of flowers or a specially-made Hallmark card, (even with their range she doubted that they had one that said, 'Congratulations! You've admitted that you've been faking your stutter!'); but she really hadn't expected Artie to wheel away without a backward glance.

It had been going so well, too. After Glee, he'd asked her, shyly, if she had wanted to go on a date (she had felt the happiest that she had been in a long time) and she'd suggested racing their wheelchairs. He had smiled the biggest smile she had ever seen on his face, and after he'd kicked her butt at it, she had gathered enough courage to kiss him. God knows that she'd wanted to for long enough.

She didn't know whether it had been the endorphins that had taken over her brain, or the feeling that with him, she was utterly safe; but she had decided to tell him the truth. She had wanted to tell him for a long time and if she was going to get into a relationship with him, it needed to be out in the open.

His reaction had left her a little mad, a lot sad, and extremely heartbroken.

She knew that she was being an overdramatic teenager, but actually, 'heartbroken' didn't even begin to describe it. She was devastated.

Tina had let down the last wall that she had put up against the world. Artie had seen through every other one, seen right to who she really was, and she had finally bulldozed her final defence against pain. Only to let the pain right in.

That, with the additional guilt she felt; the guilt that had changed from guilt at keeping the secret to guilt caused by the pain on Artie's face; seemed to pile up on top of her like a garbage heap.

When he left, she just slumped back into her wheelchair and buried her face in her hands. For once in her life, the time she actually wanted to cry, she couldn't. No tears would come. Letting out a noise of frustration at the situation didn't really help anything much. Then she felt a hand on her shoulder and screamed.

"Whoa, Tina, it's just me!"

"_Mike?"_ Tina yelled. She had leapt out of the chair, and had one hand over her heart. "_Don't_ sneak up on people like that!" She didn't know quite how, but his appearance had seemed to manage to get her tear ducts to function. Suddenly she was blubbering.

"I'm sorry! Tina, I didn't mean to scare you!" Mike was bewildered. Even more so when Tina just collapsed into the wheelchair again. "It's not you. I've...stutter...faking...not...real..."

"Wait, hold on, Tina, breathe." She nodded, hiccupping and taking a breath. As soon as she opened her mouth again though, the tears just started again.

Mike had absolutely no idea what to do. So he did what he did when his little sisters or Brittany or even Mercedes that one time got upset. He wrapped his arms around her. To his surprise, Tina leaned into him, wrapping her arms around him too. He rocked her gently, like he did his littlest sister when she had fallen off the playground swing.

Tina clung to Mike as though he was the only thing anchoring her to the earth. But as the events of the day caught up to her, another emotion began to fill her body. Embarrassment. Mike must think that she was a fruitloop. Also, her issues were really not his problem, at all.

Releasing her tight grip on his shoulder, she realised that his T-shirt was soaked with her tears and felt even more mortified, if it were possible.

"M-mike, I'm so sorry. Oh my God." Tina pulled back and saw his eyes examining her face. "I'm such an idiot."

"Tina, what happened?" Mike seemed genuinely concerned, but Tina still felt like a total ass.

"I'm so sorry." She said, wiping her eyes. Mike stood up as she did. "It's really not important."

"Tina, you were hysterical just now. Something's wrong, and you're going to tell me. Over ice cream."

* * *

Mike had not taken no for an answer, so Tina found herself sitting in a booth at the little ice cream shop in the middle of Lima. Mike had seemed completely content to just sit with her in silence during the car ride, occasionally humming along with the song on the radio. Tina had been preoccupied with the fact that she felt like Artie had ripped her heart out, wheeled over it and then left her in the hallway. Oh wait, that had happened.

By the time Mike was ordering, and she put in her order too, she thought that maybe, letting it out would help. Letting it out in another way than crying all over his shirt, that is.

"You're going to think I'm stupid." She began, stirring the vanilla, chocolate and strawberry ice cream around the glass. "I _am _stupid. And I feel so selfish right now, I mean, these aren't your issues."

"Tina, I have two little sisters. One of which is going through the 'I-must-tell-everybody-about-the-crush-I-have-on-the-boy-in-my-class' stage and will not let anybody get a word in edgeways until they have heard all about him; and the other likes to dress as a ninja and jump out of closets randomly, yelling . I will not think you're stupid." Tina nodded, smiling slightly before turning her gaze back to her ice cream.

"I faked my stutter." She said, and before Mike could say anything else leapt into the same explanation that she had given Artie. Mike's fist clenched on the table top, and Tina feared that he'd just leave too. Hell, she wondered why on earth he was here with her anyway. He was popular, she was not.

"That's all?" He said. Tina's eyes widened. People seemed hell-bent on acting the complete opposite way to what she thought they would. "I thought you'd murdered his kitten or something."

"But I lied to him. About a disability."

"You then told the truth." Tina shrugged.

"It's... a sensitive subject for Artie as it is." Tina said slowly. "I mean, think of it from his point of view." She sighed. "He can't change the way he is, even if he wanted to, which I know he does sometimes. He can't understand why someone would purposely want to push someone away."

"Shyness can get pretty serious too." Mike said. "I've heard of people that don't leave their houses because of shyness." Tina just stared at her hands.

"I do leave my house." Tina pointed out. "It's not the same." She said quietly.

"How is it different?" Mike retorted.

"How he sees it."

Mike didn't agree, but let the subject drop as he saw Tina looking sadder and sadder. She was only staring at her sundae now.

"I should head home." She said, looking at him. "Thank you so much Mike. You're a good listener. I'm sorry for dumping my troubles on you."

"It's okay." Mike said. "I'll drop you home."

* * *

The next few days were painful, but as realisation and calm had set in, as they do after the storm; Tina got thinking. Artie's words had hurt, yes, but they also, now that she'd thought about it, made her angry. _I thought we had something really important in common. _She ground her teeth together in frustration. Did the fact that they have five thousand other things in common not matter? The late night talks, the movies and the books, the personal jokes and the singing and his guitar playing while she air drummed?

_I'm sorry too. Sorry that you get to be normal..._ This ticked Tina off too. He was _sorry_ that she was _normal_? What the hell was normal anyway? Was normal faking a stutter to avoid people? Did he only like her because he thought that she was the best he could do? Because she wasn't 'normal'? Because she stuttered?

So in the hallways, Tina avoided Artie. In the classes she shared with him she didn't say a word. The reminder that her stutter-free voice would only complicate things further was enough to make her clam her lips shut. In Glee, she pushed his chair when necessary, wheeled near him in her own chair during their wheelchair number and sang her solo when necessary, but sat next to either Kurt or Mercedes. The one time she sat next to Mike, she hadn't missed the look of shock and hurt that passed over Artie's features and so they next day moved to sit with Mercedes. She might be angry, but didn't want to cause him anymore pain. That being said, she made no move to approach him. She had said sorry, in the hallway. It was his turn to make the first move.

On the first day after their fight, Mercedes and Kurt were suspicious. By the end of the second day of not speaking, Mercedes and Kurt were definitely aware that something was up. By the end of the third, they were bugging Tina (and she was sure Artie too) about what was going on. By the fifth day, she was close to breaking point.

By the time the first full week had passed, Tina was in a state of disbelief. Artie hated her; there was no other explanation for the fact that he hadn't spoken more than a sentence to her the whole week. (And she didn't think, "Please can you pass me that worksheet?" even counted). She had cried a lot, mostly at lunch when avoiding Artie was hard, (and although Brittany had been very sweet and pulled her to sit with her, this was awkward) and so she just escaped to the girl's bathroom. It was there that Mercedes and Kurt ambushed her.

She had locked herself in a cubicle and was crying her eyes out, hopefully silently, when she heard the door open and Mercedes's voice say, "Tina, we know you're in here. Come out before I drag you out."

Tina knew that pretending would do no good. She opened the stall door, and said, "Yes, I'm here, what do you want?"

Mercedes took in Tina's tired eyes, red nose from crying, and overall demeanour. She looked like she'd fought a war and lost badly. And it had to have something to do with Artie.

"Tina." She said gently, "What's wrong?"

"Nothing's wrong, I'm fine." Tina said automatically. She'd been doing it her whole life. Hiding pain – the best that she could, anyway.

"Tina, we're your friends." Kurt said. "We care."

"I faked my stutter." Tina said. It had blurted out like word-vomit. She braced herself for their anger.

"Why?" Kurt said, confused. Tina explained, for the third time (although it felt like the hundredth) about the situation. Mercedes began to look thunderous. Tina hung her head.

Yet again, another person reacted in the opposite way that she thought they would.

"I'm going to the slushie machine. That should wake him up." Kurt burst out furiously. _Kurt._ Even Mercedes looked shocked at the anger radiating off of him.

"Hold up, Kurt. _I _lied. Not Artie. Why are you acting like I'm a saint and Artie's the bad guy?"

"Yeah, you lied. That's bad, and wrong, and it hurts that you didn't tell us sooner." Mercedes said. "But the things he said were out of line as well." Kurt was shaking his head in anger.

"I lied to Mercedes." He said. Tina remembered the resulting hole in his car window. "But she forgave me. That's what you do to friends. You _forgive_."

"He just needs time." Tina said. "Look, I know you guys mean well, but you've got to let us deal with this on our own." She spun on her heel, exiting the bathroom with a determined expression on her face.

And slammed right into something solid.

It was a hockey player, she realised, as she managed to stop herself from falling. It wasn't Karofsky, but it wasn't one of the friendlier ones either. He shoved her away from him and into a locker, his letterman jacket now half-covered in red ice from where the slushie he had in his hand had sprayed on him.

"S-sorry." She said, frightened.

"Get _off_ me, Stutterfly." He said, glaring. "Don't you have Dead-Legs already? Or are you tired of him?" Tina noticed just one thing before the remainder of the sticky ice headed for her face. Artie had been wheeling around the corner towards them as the jock spoke. Tina felt anger bubble in her as she took in the look on his face at the hockey player's words.

It was the final straw. The last Jenga block pulled from the tower before it collapsed. The remaining half an inch of fuse on a lit bomb. All that she had been through the past week; the fight, the avoidance, the crying (God, she was sick of crying), the slushies, the feeling that her heart had shattered and finally that look on Artie's face; swirled in the rage that was about to explode from her.

She brought her foot back and kicked, hard.


	2. Chapter 2

Artie Abrams had been having a rough week. It had started with the Glee club, and their utter disregard for the fact that he actually wanted to travel with them to Sectionals. It improved dramatically when Mr. Shue stood up for him, they all started working on their wheelchair number and then Tina agreed to go out with him.

He was brought down from this high point however by the realisation that his best friend had been lying to him for the entire time that he had known her.

Apart from the fact that he felt that he couldn't really trust her anymore (if she had been lying – and so well too – about something like that, what else had she been lying about?) he realised that she didn't actually know what it was like to struggle in everyday life the way he did. Sure, everyone thought the stutter was real, but she could just revert back to speaking normally. He was never going to walk again.

He thought that he and Tina had shared something that separated them from the rest of their group of misfits. He had thought that out of all of them and their crazy tangled web of relationships and drama, he and Tina were solid. He had based a lot of that on the fact that they were the only two who had a disability.

He knew though that he hadn't handled it very well. He had wheeled away in anger, in hurt. She had really trusted him to react well, and he had let her down in that regard. But as she spoke those words, _I've been faking it_, he felt as though she had punched him in the gut.

Avoiding her was hard. It was so second nature to him to try to meet her every day that actually forcing himself to turn away from her took every ounce of his self control. He just couldn't look her in the eyes; he was too scared that whatever he saw there would hurt him even more. He knew that if he saw anger, he'd be angry too; pain, he'd hurt more; guilt – well, he felt guilty enough already. So he wheeled past her when she was at her locker, turned his back in chemistry, sat across the room in math, and didn't look away from the whiteboard in history. Mercedes and Kurt had given him a death glare when they saw him take in Tina's hunched shoulders (it sent guilt rushing through him but after the guilt came anger so he managed to clench his jaw and continue writing) and turn away; but he honestly just couldn't deal with any of it anymore. Whatever he was copying into his book (he had no idea, but the steady flow of his pen on the paper was calming) turned into the most important thing in the world.

He reverted back to feeling the way he felt when something hurt him. Or rather, not feeling. He tried desperately to empty himself of all emotion. To feel numb.

By the end of the week she hadn't tried to approach him at all. Not that he blamed her really, but it would at least have shown him that she cared. Mercedes and Kurt were like police dogs on a drug raid and would not leave him alone. During lunch, when Tina was absent or sitting very, very quietly next to Brittany and Mike (on the day after their fight, Artie had seen Brittany take Tina by the hand and skip happily to sit next to Santana and Matt. He was incredibly surprised that a) Santana seemed to accept this b) Tina seemed to accept this and c) Mike slung an arm around her and she returned the half-hug) they either pestered him or ignored him, both tactics not having the desired outcome. He just continued eating his lunch. The fact that Tina now seemed to fit in with the jocks and Cheerios despite the fact that they had shunned her since day one of high school did not help his frustration or anger. Even though his rational side told him that really, it was _Brittany_ and she was friends with _everyone_.

So when Mercedes sat down across from him, ignoring his "Hey Mercedes," and gave him yet another look (if looks could kill, he'd be underground) he just sighed and turned back to his sandwich.

"Why does Tina look as though she's about to break into tiny pieces at any given moment?" Mercedes demanded. Kurt sat down too, but neither of them brought out their lunch.

"And why do you look like you simultaneously want to strangle someone and burst into tears?" Kurt tapped a finger against the table. "I mean, it's not obvious to anyone else – Finn asked me if you had stomach pains – but we can see it. Especially when you look at Tina."

"And why will neither of you talk about it? I mean, seriously, you're tearing our group apart. Don't we have a right to know?" Artie glanced over at Tina, sitting between Mike and Brittany again.

In front of his eyes, Mike leaned over and pushed his chocolate pudding to Tina. She attempted a smile, and Artie saw what they meant about her looking like she would shatter into tiny pieces. It made him a bit annoyed as much as it hurt him. _She _had lied to _him_, and yet she looked heartbroken.

He watched as she shook her head, and moved to the exit. She hadn't touched anything on her tray. Mercedes rolled her eyes and stood up.

"Well, it's clear you're not going to help." She shared a look with Kurt and the two moved to follow Tina. Artie just focused back on whatever was on his plate. It didn't even matter.

He was rolling towards his next class when he heard Tina's voice. It was, small, scared, stuttering.

"S-s-sorry." As he saw who Tina was talking to, his pace towards her quickened. But he froze when he heard what came next.

"Get _off_ me, Stutterfly." The jock said, glaring. "Don't you have Dead-Legs already? Or are you tired of him?" Artie felt like he had been slapped across the face. _Dead-Legs, nice, that's a new one._ But mostly he felt anger rip through the numbness. Anger at the way that the jock was treating Tina, at Tina herself, at Mercedes and Kurt and Mike; at life in general at the moment.

But as Tina glanced in his direction, and then was covered in the sticky ice, clearly he was not as angry as she was. It was as though static was radiating from her body. And for someone so small, she sure could look intimidating.

He saw the look on her face as she drew her foot back. He knew from her intense expression that she wasn't angry.

She was _furious_.

As her foot connected (he was immensely proud of Tina for the amount of force behind that kick) and the jock doubled over, Artie took in Mercedes' and Kurt's expressions. They had emerged from the bathroom just in time to see Tina lash out. Kurt looked as proud as Artie; as though his little girl has cured world poverty or singlehandedly stopped a moving train. Mercedes was visibly shocked (Artie was too, he had never, ever seen Tina get violent like that – she even scooped spiders from her room and moved them outside rather than killing them) with one hand covering her mouth. Mike, striding down the hallway with Matt, stopped in curiosity as he saw the hockey player in pain, and Matt let out a snicker as the situation made sense in his mind. Tina looked like she was feeling a mixture of emotions; guilty, disbelieving as to what she had just done, and sort of proud, all at the same time.

As Mr. Forster, Artie's history teacher moved into the hallway, the jock looked up at Tina.

"Bitch." He hissed out from the floor.

Big mistake on his part.

* * *

Just after lunch, when Principal Figgins was trying to enjoy his homemade fruit salad (he had waited all day to eat this, and had been delayed by Sue Sylvester's 'urgent' meeting at lunchtime; although she had written him a cheque for ramps in the auditorium, so that made up for the fact that his lunchtime had been disrupted) his personal assistant announced that he had visitors. He put down his fork with a sigh. This wasn't rare, he was the principal after all. He just hoped it wasn't Sue Sylvester returning to blackmail him, or William Schuester telling him how unfair Sue was. Or both, for that matter, coming to use his office as a battlefield.

He wasn't too surprised to see Truscott, the hockey player who was notorious for picking on people for no apparent reason, limp in. He looked as though he had been fighting, and Figgins didn't look forward to the fact that he would, this time, probably have to suspend him. He didn't know the names of the two football players who were pulled in by Ned Forster, glaring daggers at Truscott, but wasn't exactly shocked. The football players and the hockey players seemed to have some sort of ongoing feud.

The sound of wheels behind them nearly made his jaw drop in surprise, but he concealed this. He was a professional after all.

Figgins just, understandably, didn't expect the straight-A-achieving, hardworking Artie Abrams to have been involved. Or the reason that Truscott had three broken toes.


	3. Chapter 3

Mike Chang did not have a crush on Tina Cohen-Chang.

It's not like he didn't think she was pretty or anything, just that she was kind of like a third sister to him.

He felt like he was some kind of broken record, repeating the same thing over and over again. Because his supposed-best-friend had this idea that Mike was totally head-over-heels for Tina. And every single time Matt said, "Dude, just ask her out!" Mike would say, again, "I don't like her like that. We grew up going to the same schools, our parents know each other. She's my _friend_." Matt would respond with, "Whatever," and the conversation would be pushed aside until the next time that Matt felt like bringing it up again.

Mike guessed that the way he had gone off at Artie about the whole stutter thing hadn't helped his case very much. In Matt's words, "Why would you do that unless you didn't _like_ her?" He just couldn't take the tension anymore.

Tina and Artie had been very obviously down for a week. A _whole week_ had passed and neither of them even acknowledged each other outside of Glee. And in Glee, everyone noticed that _something_ was up with them. They were usually joined at the hip, and suddenly, were only talking and dancing and singing together when necessary.

It ticked Mike off, the whole situation. The fact that two people had the potential to be so happy together and had hurt each other over something so... well, it wasn't _insignificant_, exactly, just... bizarre. The whole situation was bizarre.

Mike hadn't planned to interfere, he really hadn't. In fact, he thought that Artie and Tina were working it out themselves after Artie had been involved in the fiasco in the corridor with Mark Truscott. He expected them to talk it out, to make up when they had both clearly showed that they cared for the other. Tina had taken down a jock, and Artie had broken his toes, after said jock had insulted them.

But when another week started to pass slowly by, he realised that they were clearly not doing anything productive to fix their relationship. When he tried to get Tina to talk about it, she just murmured, "He _hates_ me, Mike. That's the reason why he hasn't spoken to me."

So on Wednesday, after Glee, Mike stepped in front of Artie's chair as everyone was leaving. Artie raised his eyebrows as if to say, "What's going on here?" and Mike waited until they were the last ones in the room before saying, "What the hell are you playing at, Abrams?"

Artie had looked confused.

"What?"

"You know what." Mike said. "Tina. They way that you're hurting her."

"This isn't any of your business." Artie snapped, trying to wheel away.

"I found her in the corridor." Mike said, causing Artie to stop in his tracks. "They day you had your fight. I have never, _ever_ seen someone look so sad." Artie spun to face him, an unreadable expression on his face.

"Did she tell you everything?" He said through clenched teeth. Mike nodded.

"I practically had to pry it out of her with a crowbar. She wouldn't say anything and then when she did, at first I couldn't understand anything other than 'fake' and 'stutter' and 'Artie' because she was crying so much. You really, really hurt her."

"She hurt me too." Mike heard Artie mutter. He looked up at Mike again and raised his voice slightly so he could hear without straining. "She is the one who started all of this, this _mess_, and she can just turn on the waterworks and everyone's putty in her hands." Mike saw red at this.

"Do you seriously think that _Tina_ would try to manipulate anyone?" He spat out. Artie visibly drew back from his tone of voice. "I _found_ her in the hall! She needed someone, anyone, and I just happened to be there. I don't blame her for crying about what you said." Artie was looking at his hand now, twisting them nervously. Mike bent to get to Artie's level.

"Either fix it or break it." He hissed, "But don't leave her thinking that you hate her, imagining the worst." He moved towards the door. When he reached it, he spun around. "And Wheels? If you ever hurt her like that again, I will knock your lights out."

When he arrived home, Mike realised what he had done. Tina was going to _kill_ him when she found out. She had told him, specifically, to not say anything. To not get involved. Matt did not help at all; when Mike got in the door and found him in his kitchen eating Oreos from his pantry and saying, "Hey man, your mom let me in – whoa dude, who got your panties in a bunch?"; Mike had explained the situation and Matt had simply snickered and said in a singsong way, "You _like _her. You really _like _her." Mike had just rolled his eyes, the anger from before had disappeared as quickly as it had flared up.

No, Mike did not _like_ Tina. He just had a compulsive need to be honest, all the time. The one time, as a little kid, he had lied to his mom and seen the heartbroken look on her face when she found out he had sworn to himself that he would never make her look that way again. The problem was, sometimes (read: pretty much all the time) his honesty came with chronic word-vomit. So Mike mainly just stayed quiet.

Because when Mike let out a spiel of word-vomit (Exhibit A: what he said to Artie in the choir room) it usually came back to bite him in the ass. And ever since Tina took down the jock in the hall (Mike had never been prouder of his honorary little sister in his life, and that included when she threw her shoe at this kid who was picking on another kid for having braces. Luckily for the kid, it was before she wore those heavy boots) he was pretty afraid of the damage she could do.

Tina was going to find out, sooner or later. And when Tina found out?

Mike was a dead man.


	4. Chapter 4

A/N: So, I got a review from **browncoat**, who raised a really good point. There was a big jump to Sectionals. So here's me filling the gap :) The next three chapters are for you, **browncoat**.

Thanks to everyone who reviewed, story-alerted or favourited :D. Special thanks to **Adatrix,** **Average** **Everyday Sane Psycho, ****gigundoly**, and **.Gleek**,

* * *

Mercedes Jones blamed Rachel Berry. Although this was probably unfair, Rachel was irritating, and so she blamed her anyway.

Now she thought about it, however, it was probably more the fault of Puck, or even Santana; those two had brought the majority of the alcohol. Regardless, Mercedes was now getting very frustrated; a drunk Tina was like Brittany on vitamin D.

It all started when Rachel, sensing the tension between certain members of the club (not mentioning any names, but Artie and Tina, Finn and Kurt, Puck and Quinn,), decided that they all needed to work together more. Despite the fact that they had all come together to sing to Quinn and Finn, Rachel announced that she was disappointed in them all (Mercedes had just rolled her eyes) and had said that she was having a compulsory Glee party at her house. She assigned them all tasks and, in a complete lapse of judgment on Rachel's part, Puck had been put in charge of drinks.

Mercedes didn't know what had taken over Rachel's brain when she had made that decision, but understood better when neither Puck nor Santana made a fuss about attending the party because there would be alcohol. Mercedes herself had decided not to drink. Tina, apparently, had not.

It had been just over two weeks since her fight with Artie, and not being his friend had taken its toll on her. Even Puck had noticed something was up; and the two seemed to bond over their sadnesses. When Mercedes sat down on Rachel's sofa after a dance with Kurt, she was surprised to see them talking, laughing and then Puck handing Tina a drink. Clearly not her first one, either.

As the evening passed, pizza was ordered and eaten, and everybody took to the area that Rachel had decided was the dance floor. Mercedes kept one eye on Tina. She was acting... different. And when Mercedes got close enough to smell her breath, she realised why.

Puck approached them as Tina started to tell Mercedes that she really liked the song playing, saying "Do you guys want a drink?" While Tina nodded, Mercedes shook her head, saying "Tina, you've probably had enough." Tina pouted, and started to stand up to follow Puck.

Mercedes' first plan of attack was distraction.

"Tina, want to dance? Look, Britt's over there." She pulled Tina to her feet with difficulty; Tina was giggling hysterically.

"Brittany!" She yelled across the room. Brittany looked up from where she was dancing with Santana, and Tina called out, "Want to dance?" Kurt raised his eyebrows at the slurring of Tina's words into one jumbled one and Artie glared at Puck (not that Puck noticed, his eyes seemed to be focused on Tina) as he followed Tina onto Rachel's 'dance-floor.'

Although Tina started off dancing with Santana and Brittany, losing her balance once or twice, Puck was definitely trying to get her to dance with him. He finally succeeded, and she seemed to be okay with dancing with him for a little bit. Quinn was seated next to Artie now, her hand in Finn's and watching Puck and Tina with interest.

When Tina tried to pull away, however; Mercedes heard Puck say, "Oh, come on, just one more song," and grabbed her arms.

"Puck, leave her alone." Artie had wheeled up beside them.

"What? She's single, Wheels." Puck said. Tina looked from him to Artie.

"She doesn't want to dance." Artie's quiet but firm voice was filled with anger. Puck let her go almost immediately; and Tina, who had been pushing against his chest, fell off balance, falling ungracefully into Mercedes. Artie looked at Puck as though he would very much like to break his toes like Truscott's; and Puck, not surprisingly, moved away, heading to where Rachel was refilling a bowl of chips.

Tina giggled, wrapping an arm around Mercedes and proclaiming, "I love you Mercedes, and I love your earrings, and your top, and your jeans..."

"Thanks, Tina." Mercedes said, slightly bemused. Santana was watching Tina with amusement.

"I think it's time to go home." Artie said, glaring at Puck's retreating back. Tina looked at him.

"Why?" She asked. "It's only..." Tina stared at the clock, wondering why the hands weren't keeping still. "Mercedes." She whispered.

"Tina?" Mercedes whispered back.

"I think I forgot how to read the clock." Tina whispered. Quinn couldn't help but giggle.

"Don't worry." Brittany whispered to Tina. "I can't read it either."

"Why are we whispering?" Mike whispered too, entering from the kitchen with a slice of (now cold – they'd ordered it over two hours ago) pizza.

"Mike!" Tina yelled happily, tugging on his hand. Mike shared a glance with Mercedes, his eyebrows raised. "Because we can! We can run and jump and skip and shout. But we can whisper too." She lowered her voice. "Like this!"

"Tina, how much have you had to drink?" Mike asked.

"Oh, a couple..." Mike lost track of her sentence because the last few words jumbled together.

"I'll take her home." Artie said from behind Mercedes. Mercedes thought about this. Although Artie and Tina definitely had not made much (any) progress on repairing their friendship, this could definitely help them to do so. And they needed to sort it out, because eating lunch with just three people was weird. They were always missing the fourth member of their little group; whether it was Artie avoiding Tina, or Tina avoiding Artie. That and the fact that it was clearly hurting both of them.

"How were you planning to go home originally?" Mercedes asked.

"Well, I was planning on getting my dad to get me." Artie said. "I don't know what Tina was planning. I don't know how I'm going to explain this to her parents."

"I was going to give her a lift." Mike said, "Her parents are out of town."

"Kurt and I can drive you." Mercedes said. Artie seemed to relax slightly at the news that nobody was going to be answering the questions of Tina's parents tonight. "Your dad will ask some serious questions when he sees that one." She pointed her thumb in Tina's direction.

After grabbing Kurt from his conversation with Quinn and Finn, they loaded a fairly-cooperative Tina into the back of Kurt's car. Mercedes definitely noticed how Brittany-like Tina was when drunk. She kept up a steady stream of commentary, half of it completely nonsensical, and burst into bouts of random giggles. Mercedes rode next to Tina in the back, and saw Artie's face from the front passenger seat in the review mirror. His facial expression, apart from a little weary, was blank.

* * *

As they pulled up in front of Tina's house, Tina became more and more uncooperative.

"But I don't want to." She said, as Mercedes tried to tug her out of the car.

"Tina, come inside, okay?" Artie's voice was tired, and Mercedes realised that this was possibly the first time he had spoken to her since their fight. Tina tilted her head to the side as if examining him, before saying, "Okay!" and attempting to jump from the back of Kurt's car. She stumbled into Kurt on the pavement, giggling madly again, before skipping (well, kind-of skipping) up the path to her front door. They followed her, Kurt shaking his head as Tina started singing, completely off-key.

"Follow the yellow brick road!"

"There's a spare key under the pot plant." Artie said to Mercedes as they got to her front door. Tina spun his chair around in a circle, still singing. "Tina, can you stop that please?" Artie said. Kurt took pity and pulled Tina's arm to get her to move inside. As they got into the living room, Mercedes turned on the lights, pushing Tina gently to sit on the couch. Artie went into the kitchen with Kurt, and emerged a few minutes later with water for Tina.

As they all took seats on the couch and watched Tina warily, Mercedes realised just how tired she was. She was glad that Tina had accepted the water without any fuss, drinking it in almost one gulp. She now seemed to be content to just sit quietly. Mercedes should have realised that she was too quiet.

Tina began to look dazed, and Kurt saw the look of nausea that passed across her face. He called out, "She's going to barf!" Mercedes immediately pushed her towards the kitchen, but Tina didn't make it to the sink.

They handled the situation quite well, Mercedes thought. As Mercedes mopped up a now groaning Tina, Kurt took care of the floor, muttering, "She owes me," and something about Gucci and Alexander McQueen. Artie emerged in the kitchen with a pile of clothes in his lap, saying to Mercedes, "Here are her pyjamas."

She would have congratulated them all on their pretty awesome teamwork, but realising that now was probably not the best time, Mercedes instead pulled Tina into the downstairs bathroom and helped her change. Tina was now cooperating fully, albeit looking slightly green.

This time, Mercedes got her to the toilet, pulling her hair away from her face as she retched.

Yes, Tina definitely owed them.


	5. Chapter 5

Tina woke up with a throbbing head. It felt as though someone had hit her with a baseball bat. As she opened her eyes, wincing at the light that streamed through the crack in the curtains, she realised that she was not in her room. She was on her living room couch.

She couldn't remember getting back home. She could remember Rachel's house, and Puck giving her drinks and dancing with Brittany. But getting back home seemed to be missing from her memory. She sat up slowly, pushing the cover (it was her duvet, she realised) off of her and reaching for the glass of water that was resting on the coffee table in front of her. She wasn't wearing her little black dress anymore; she was wearing her pyjamas.

"Morning Tina." Tina jumped almost a foot in the air, sloshing water all down herself and onto the floor. She choked on the mouthful she had, coughing violently and jumping to her feet. Squinting into the half-light, she could make out Artie on the other couch, his wheelchair near his feet. Tina coughed again, and tried desperately to remember why Artie was in her house.

"You okay?" Artie sounded worried. Tina managed to stop coughing and rubbed her head.

"What happened last night?" Tina asked. She knew there were issues that the two needed to talk out, but honestly, having a big blank space of time in her head was freaking her out.

"You drunk a little too much at Rachel's party." Artie said. "Mercedes and Kurt helped me bring you home and I stayed because Mike said your parents weren't here. I wanted to make sure you were okay."

"Why would you care?" She didn't say it with any venom; her voice sounded sad and tired. Nevertheless, she saw Artie snap his head towards her. She was glad that she couldn't see his face very well. He reached for his glasses on the coffee table.

"Tina, of course I care." Artie turned his whole body to face her, and Tina knew that this talk was going to be incredibly serious. "You – I mean – I..."

"Then why haven't you been speaking to me?" Tina interrupted, tugging on the ends of her hair.

"You've been avoiding me." He countered.

"Because you hate me." Tina said, looking at her hands. Artie felt guilt rush through him. "Why are you here when you clearly hate me?"

Artie swallowed and tried to catch Tina's gaze, but he couldn't see much of her face in the half-light. She looked so small in front of him, but thankfully she wasn't crying, yet. He hated it when she cried, especially when he was in some way responsible.

"Tina, I don't hate you. Not even close."

"Then why have you been avoiding m-me?" Her voice broke on the last word, tears rolling down her cheeks. "I said I was sorry." She drew in a breath and pushed her hands to her eyes, trying desperately to stop the tears. "I let you in." She said, very quietly. "I let you in and _you _pushed _me _away." She continued hurriedly as she realised that he was about to speak. "I know that I lied, Artie, and I am so sorry for that. But how can you even think that a disability was the only thing that we had in common?" She started speaking quietly, but her voice was near a shout by the end. This surprised Artie; he'd seen her get violent just once, now it appeared that he was going to see her yelling too. Loud Tina was just as rare as violent Tina.

"Tina, it hurt. It hurt so bad when you said that you've been lying. I've trusted you for so long, with everything, and it felt like betrayal." He took a breath and tried to figure out what he wanted to say. "It hurts that you can switch the stutter on and off like a light." He finally managed. Tina looked up at him, and he could see her eyes glistening. "But I'm sorry too, Tina. I shouldn't have left. I just couldn't deal with it right then."

"Your favourite colour is green." She said suddenly, just as quiet as she had been to start with. "You like orange chocolate-chip ice cream, even though it is the worst flavour known to man." Tina's voice was rising, both in strength and in volume. "You like summer over winter and you know pretty much the whole of all the Star Wars movies by heart. You don't care that Kurt threatens to burn your sweaters every second day, or that Finn trips over your chair just as often; and you let me air drum even after I nearly knocked you out that one time." She was really yelling by this point, despite the fact that her face was in an expression of pain. "You have never, ever been a chair to me. But I was a stutter to you."

"Tina, that's not true." Artie patted the spot on the sofa beside him. "Tina, please, come here." Tina shook her head, standing and pacing back and forth in front of the coffee table. "Your favourite colour is blue." He echoed her softly, gaining courage as her pacing slowed slightly. "You like strawberry ice cream, which is not quite as delicious as orange chocolate-chip." Tina stopped pacing and looked at him. "You like spring, but summer's a close second, and you recognise every single quote that I ever make from any geeky movie invented. Your favourite movie is Chicago." Tina ran a hand through her hair. "Kurt offers to burn your clothing just as much as mine, and I'm pretty sure Finn steps on your toes as often as he trips over my chair." He actually got a watery giggle at that, and he reached out a hand to her. "You have never been a stutter to me."

She finally looked him in the eyes, letting him pull her to the couch. As she wrapped her arms around him and her tears escalated into full on sobbing, she could feel his arms move around her too.

"I'm sorry." Tina said.

"I'm sorry too."

"I hate fighting." She mumbled into his shoulder. He nodded in response. She moved out of his embrace and settled next to him on the sofa.

"My head hurts." She rubbed her forehead. "I should not have yelled. That really didn't help."

"You shouldn't have drunk so much." Artie said. Tina pushed his shoulder.

"Thanks for that. I really needed an 'I-told-you-so' just to make it all better."

"Would you like something for that sarcasm?" He asked her, and grinned when he felt her laugh. "But seriously, Puck? He's getting the same treatment as Truscott. Nice kick by the way."

"Kurt was so proud." Tina said, hiding her face in her hands. She laughed suddenly and said, "Matt told him they were my secret ninja skills and asked Mike if he had the same ones. Mike called him racist."

"It's been a weird week." Artie said.

And Tina found it got even weirder when, before school on Monday, Brittany asked her why she had a watch if she couldn't read it.


	6. Chapter 6

Quinn Fabray actually liked this number, even though Rachel was predicting doom and gloom, Finn kept spitting bits of wig out of his mouth, and Brittany was _still_ working out the best way to dance around Artie's chair.

Nobody knew how, but she had managed to hit him with her leg, narrowly missing his face, once already.

Although she was having a blast, Mr. Shue was getting frustrated with everyone, Quinn could tell. Santana was in a particularly bitchy mood, continuously making comments about choreography, or people. Tina was giggly with Mercedes (which made a huge change from the sad Tina of the past couple of weeks), both finding everything hilariously funny; especially when Brittany tossed her head and hit Artie straight across the face with her hair. Artie mock-glared at them and Quinn was just glad that Tina and Artie were actually speaking.

Quinn knew that she was selfish, but it had really irked her when they hadn't been speaking. They had been such a point of normalcy in her life; like Mike' and Matt's joking, Kurt' and Mercedes' gossiping and Santana' and Brittany's pinkie-linking, seeing Artie meet Tina at her locker each day when she was at her own was a routine. When slowly, everything in her life was changing and breaking – her home, her body, her teachers, the way people were treating her, Finn's growing crush on Rachel – they were rock solid. When they fell apart in front of her eyes, it scared her.

This was part of the reason that Quinn loved this dance. After all the absolute craziness in her life, it really let her let loose. She could flip her hair, stamp her feet, shake and move; and apart from the kink that she could feel forming in her neck, it felt great.

The only downside that Quinn could think of was that she was terrified that Kurt would drop her when they did their lift.

She didn't really understand why she was paired with Kurt. Well, she did; Rachel had demanded that everyone be paired up based on hair colour. Kurt's blonde wig meant that Quinn was either going to be placed with him, and as everyone else had been paired up, Artie. And with Brittany being the blonde more able to move around a chair (ie: she didn't have a baby bump in the way) it meant that Quinn was with Kurt. She just would have preferred to have been with Finn. Seeing him paired with Rachel was like _Push It_ all over again.

"Okay, guys, seriously." Mr. Shue looked like smoke was about to burst from his ears. "We need to calm down and work hard if we want to win Sectionals. Mercedes and Tina, stop it." Tina blushed at being called out (Quinn doubted that she had actually ever been told off at school before) and moved meekly to stand in front of Mike. Mercedes shuffled awkwardly towards Matt.

"Okay, from 'Give me...'" Everyone took their places and Mr. Schue pressed play.

As they strutted back towards their guys, Quinn planned to just jump for the lift as they were supposed to. Just grit her teeth and jump. She tried; but she hesitated just long enough for it to be more Kurt picking her up awkwardly (he seemed as hesitant as she was) and not a jump. This resulted in one of her legs slipping so that she was standing on one leg and then them being out of time with everyone else.

Apparently they weren't the only ones having issues because Mr. Schue stopped the music and said, "Take a quick break guys, I need water. Be back in five." He exited the classroom, and Quinn swore she heard him mutter something about alcohol.

"Are you okay Quinn?" Kurt asked her as they moved to sit down. Everyone else remained standing, and Tina inched towards Mercedes again, a slightly mischievous grin on her face.

"Yeah, I think I just need to sit down for a little – " Quinn was cut off by Rachel.

"We need to run through the lift again." Rachel said, pulling Tina back into line. Various groans were heard from around the room.

"Rachel, he said we could have a break." Finn's voice was gentle.

"There is no time for breaks! We can run through again together or individually." Rachel said adamantly.

"What do you mean by individually?" Puck asked suspiciously.

"One pair at a time." Rachel said. There seemed to be a collective shared glance and then everyone obediently stood next to their partners again. Quinn stayed seated, honestly just needing a break, sipping water from her water bottle.

"Quinn doesn't look too well, I'll sit with her." Kurt said from his seat beside her. Quinn was surprised, but went with it; and apart from a few worried glances, nobody dared to disobey Rachel.

Kurt pressed play and everyone started to move. Quinn could see, from here, why Mr. Schue was getting so frustrated with everyone. Santana, while clearly fine with the choreography, was having trouble with tossing her hair around. Puck looked like a caveman (Quinn giggled at this) and Brittany was getting so into it that Artie was more hits. Mercedes was definitely having trust issues, and although it was clear to Quinn that Matt was not going to drop her, was as hesitant as Quinn had been. Mike was just as into it as Brittany and Tina ducked one of his arms. The only pair that actually seemed to be doing okay were Finn and Rachel. This really annoyed Quinn, although Finn was looking just as caveman-like as Puck – neither had ever been the most graceful people in the world. Quinn watched Rachel as they ran through the lift again, trying to absorb some of the confidence and courage that she obviously had. Rachel looked like she was enjoying herself. This did not help with Quinn's growing annoyance. What was _wrong_ with her? She was _Quinn Fabray_, and she was _not_ going to be jealous of Rachel Berry.

"I won't drop you, you know." Kurt said suddenly. She turned to him to see that he had been following her gaze. "I'm not as scrawny as I look."

"I don't think you're scrawny." Quinn said quickly, but laughed all the same. "I just... I'm scared of being dropped. Stupid, considering I've been on the top of more cheer towers than I can count." Kurt shook his head.

"It's okay, you're pregnant now. It's completely understandable. To be honest, I'm scared that I'm going to squish you or something." Head-Cheerio Quinn would have pounced on the fear, laughed at him. But now she just shook her head too.

"You won't." She said, smiling slightly. She liked the fact that she was forming some form of a friendship with Kurt. She knew in the future, as her stomach expanded, she was going to need friends.

"Okay then." Kurt stood up. Quinn looked at him warily. "Come on." He pulled her to her feet.

"Kurt, what -?" She asked. He just smiled, saying, "Trust me, okay?" before bending and picking her up; one arm under her knees, the other supporting her back. She let out a surprised squeal and linked her arms behind his neck automatically, holding on for dear life. As she realised that he did, in fact, have a firm grip on her, she relaxed the choke-hold she had on him, and he laughed. Mr. Schue entered the room to see Kurt put her gently back on her feet.

Although it didn't feel the way it did when she was being lifted by Finn, Kurt's arms still felt safe, and she knew that he would not drop her. It was the thing she needed to be able to do the lift.

She didn't hesitate again. And when the kids from Haverbrook were there watching them, Quinn grinned at Kurt through the hair flying around them. She just took a deep breath and let go of her fear. Because she knew that when she jumped, Kurt wasn't going to drop her.

And he didn't.


	7. Chapter 7

A/N: Many thanks to **Average Everyday Sane Psycho **and **Adatrix** for your reviews. :) This chapter is for you.

* * *

Kurt Hummel had a headache. It was not the best time for a headache, either.

They were in their little green room, at Sectionals. They should have been doing last minute rehearsals, refreshing their minds of their choreography and parts. They should not be facing having to work out two whole new numbers. Without a coach.

Artie had had a really bad reaction to the fact that the Jane Adams girls did Proud Mary. Kurt knew that it was the fact that they had done it in wheelchairs. To Artie, it was like they were mocking him. They had taken his special song, his one chance at wasting everyone else choreography-wise, and ground it into the dirt. When they got back to the green room, and Ms. Pillsbury called Mr. Schue frantically, Artie had been wheeling his wheelchair into the wall, over and over again.

To make matters worse, nobody knew what they could say, or do. The one person who knew him well enough to help him was sitting with Mercedes on the couch, having a murmured conversation about the unfairness of life. Kurt leaned over, hating seeing both Mercedes and Artie hurting. Kurt knew he could help Mercedes feel better; and Tina could help Artie.

"Tina." Kurt said. Tina looked at him. Kurt looked pointedly at Artie.

Tina knew how upset Artie was. She just didn't know how to approach him. They were friends again but neither really knew how to broach the whole 'should we date again?' subject. It was awkward between them.

Looking at Artie now, Tina knew she had to do something. So she ran her hand over Mercedes' back one last time, hugged her and then stood and made her way across the room. Artie couldn't have heard her footsteps towards him because when she put a hand on his shoulder, he jumped and his hand slipped off his wheel.

"Artie." She said quietly, crouching beside his chair. He looked at her, and she saw the one hundred and one different emotions in his face. He was upset, he was nervous, he was worried. The emotion that hurt Tina the most was Artie's hurt.

Sometimes Artie thought that if knowing someone was a sport, Tina would have won a gold medal by now for how well she knew him. She knew that he wanted to escape, if not for a little bit. So she pulled his chair away from the wall and headed out of the green room and through the foyer, looking for somewhere quieter. They passed the room that had been assigned for the Jane Adams girls, and Tina shot them an absolutely filthy look before quickening her pace away from them.

Turning the corner into an empty hallway, Tina spied two chairs outside a door labelled 'Dressing Room A.' She pushed Artie right up to one of the chairs, before sitting down in it and taking his hands in hers.

"It sucks, Artie, it really sucks." She said softly. "I can't believe they did that. But you have to know it wasn't a personal attack at you." Artie nodded, gripping her hands.

"I just... I was better, for once. I could run circles around all of you." He said, his voice sounding strained. Tina would be surprised if he started to cry though; Artie never cried, ever. They had a running joke that she did enough of it for the both of them.

"You still can, Artie. You will always run circles around us." Tina didn't know what else she could say. They both knew how much the situation sucked. After just sitting in silence with their hands wrapped up together, Tina smiled suddenly, opening her arms and saying seriously, "I'm going to hug you now."

Artie couldn't help but smile a little bit as she leaned forwards and wrapped her arms around his shoulders. Linking his own around her waist, he tugged gently so she was sitting on his lap. The first time she had hugged him like this had been on her birthday two years before when he had given her a full season of Grey's Anatomy on DVD. She had squealed and leapt at him, nearly tipping the chair. It felt so much more natural now, so right.

"Thank you." He whispered as he buried his face in her shoulder.

* * *

Kurt watched his teammates. Brittany and Mike were working on choreography, Rachel singing quietly with Mercedes. Tina was sitting on the floor with her back against Artie's legs, her eyes closed; Artie had a hand on her shoulder and was singing softly. As Tina put in a backing vocal here and there, Kurt realised that they were running through lyrics. He didn't know how, but when they had returned after they had disappeared, Artie was actually half-smiling and a lot calmer. Kurt was glad because they needed everyone to be paying attention.

Santana had produced her iPod and pushed her headphones at him, resulting in them having an ear piece of her headphones each and mouthing their parts to _You Can't Always Get What You Want_ along with the music.

"Okay guys, we're going to have a run through now." Finn said. Magical reappearing Finn, saviour of the day. When he had turned up, Kurt had sighed with relief. For one, Jacob Ben-Israel could go away (that boy was seriously creepy), and another, Finn actually seemed to have a calming influence on all of them. Well, except Quinn or Puck, but that couldn't be helped. Ms. Pillsbury was trying, she really was; bringing in snacks and drinks, fetching bits of costume here and there, tying Finn's tie for him; but she couldn't help them very much when it came to their actual performance. So their teamwork was really coming into play here.

They all stood up and listened to Mike' and Brittany's instructions. Rachel had had the idea to enter from the back of the auditorium for her ballad and then have the others walk in, so she started in the area that they'd set up as a makeshift stage.

"When I sing, 'I'll march my band out,'" Rachel began, "for the second time, all of you walk in. She began to sing from just before the lyrics she had mentioned and Brittany and Mike arranged everyone in two lines behind pretend auditorium doors.

It took three times; Rachel singing "I'll march my band out..." and everyone else criss-crossing to stand behind her and Artie wheeling in from the side; to get the 'stage' looking right. They then ran through _You Can't Always Get What You Want_ twice before Rachel instructed that they drink something while she, Finn and Artie went to speak to the lighting guys.

Kurt sat down next to Mercedes and, although he wanted to throw something at Rachel's retreating form, took a long drink from his water bottle. He was brought out of running through lyrics in his mind by Mike's voice.

"Tina, are you okay?" Kurt turned his head in Tina's direction.

She was incredibly pale, sitting with her eyes closed. Kurt recognised this – it was Tina getting nervous, as she did before all their performances. Tina opened her eyes at Mike's question, smiling in what she hoped was a convincing way.

"Yeah, I'm fine, just nervous." She responded. She spoke too fast and her voice was slightly higher than normal. Kurt took in the shaking of her hands.

"Tina have you eaten anything?" Kurt asked. He recalled that when she had gone off with Artie they had missed Rachel's 'it's important to eat regularly!' lecture.

"Yeah, I had lunch and Rachel forced me to eat some yogurt before. I'm just kind of freaking out." She said. Her admittance of this surprised Kurt. Tina was definitely a suffer-in-silence type. She never usually expressed her discomfort about anything – she hadn't uttered a word when Rachel had made a fuss about the whole '_Tonight'_ solo (only mentioning her embarrassment and guilt for Rachel's consequent departure from the club to Artie, Mercedes and himself afterwards).

Artie wheeled in at that moment, taking in the fact that everyone's eyes were on his sort-of girlfriend. (Kurt had lost track of their relationship status sometime between "I like Artie/I like Tina, we're dating," and "She faked a stutter/he hates me, we're best friends"). Still, Kurt was amazed when Artie said, "She needs sugar," and started rummaging through his backpack, without even being told what was going on. Everyone looked at him.

"But we want her to be calmer." Quinn said in her 'duh-you-should-know-that' voice.

"Trust me," Artie said, pulling a crumpled five-dollar note out of his backpack. "Calm isn't going to happen right now. Sugar helps her when she's like this."

"I'm right here you know." Tina said, shutting her eyes again. Pieces began to fall into place in Kurt's head; Artie handing Tina his can of coke as well as her own before their invitationals performance, Tina eating half of a huge block of chocolate and ignoring Kurt's indignant, "How can you eat that without it going straight to your ass?" before they performed _Push It_ in assembly.

Mercedes volunteered to get a soda for Tina, taking Artie's money and leaving, and Artie wheeled to sit with Tina. Kurt was glad that they seemed to be on speaking terms, whatever their relationship status, although match-making did sound like fun. He'd have to talk to Mercedes about it later.

He listened in amusement as Artie tried to distract Tina from her nerves by talking about the lyrics of the song. It kind of worked; while she didn't look as pale, she started rambling about people not being able to get what they want.

"Like, Mercedes wants that new pair of shoes, the ones with the big heels and buckles, but can't afford them because Kurt told her to buy the other ones, the ones that she was wearing yesterday. I liked those." She began. "And Rachel wants to date Finn, but there's this big drama going on with Puck and Quinn and somehow Santana too which means that Brittany will be involved somehow, I'm sure. Kurt wants to be able to –" Kurt was pretty sure that he and Artie were the only one's sitting close enough to hear here, but nevertheless he cleared his throat so that Mike, who was leaning closer to be able to understand what she was saying, wouldn't hear whatever she was going to say. Tina heard his noise and blushed, saying, "Sorry Kurt. Well, anyway Mike wants to buy a kitten for his youngest sister, who wants to be a ninja, which is pretty cool because ninjas are just awesome. And I want –" She let out a sudden squeak and was silent, to Kurt' and Mike's amusement.

When Mercedes returned with a coke (and a muesli bar, she was worried that she hadn't eaten enough) for Tina, Ms. Pillsbury walked in and wished them luck. Ten minutes after that, (and after Tina had managed to get down half a can of Red Bull on top of the soda – she ignored Rachel's "think about your voice!" and Artie's "I'd be more concerned about her immune system...") they were outside the auditorium. Kurt squeezed Mercedes' hand and whispered, "Break a leg," as they waited for the music to begin.

Mike watched in amusement as the sugar Tina had consumed started to kick in. Tina's pale zombie look had disappeared and now she was bouncing on her toes slightly. As Rachel entered the auditorium with a, "Don't tell me not to live, just sit and putter!" they all inhaled. She was going to _kill _the ballad.

Tina spun to face him, grinning as she mouthed the words along with Rachel. He bit back a laugh at her antics. Brittany, in the other line, was watching Tina too, and as the song progressed, joined in her over-exaggerated hand movements.

"Don't tell me not to fly, I've simply got to. If someone takes a spill, it's me and not you!"

Quinn was giving them a weird look, and Matt was trying not to laugh as Brittany crossed to Tina's line. They started doing an odd ballroom-style dance around the foyer, and Mercedes stuffed her fist in her mouth to stop from laughing.

"I'll march my band out, I'll beat my drum!" Mike found it interesting that Brittany immediately took the male role, but she was taller so it made sense. One of the ticket collectors was watching too now, and Finn was trying to get them to move back into line, unsuccessfully, to the amusement of the rest ofthe members of New Directions. They stopped quick-stepping, or fox-trotting, or whatever dance it was supposed to be, Brittany spinning Tina, before Tina began to completely Rachel-ify the song. She threw her body around the small space with over-exaggerated theatricality, mouthing the lyrics as she went. The way Rachel was singing, Mike could imagine her acting the way Tina was. He hoped that she was, because Mike had to admit, Tina was actually good, in a completely over-the-top way.

"But whether I'm the rose of sheer perfection, a freckle on the nose of life's complexion, the cinder or the shiny apple of its eye." Brittany, naturally, followed Tina's lead, spinning around with her. Tina leaned on the small table in front of the auditorium and kicked her legs up.

"We need to give her that much sugar more often." Mike heard Puck whisper to Matt, and Kurt let out a tiny snort.

"It's the combination of that and nerves." Kurt said.

"Remember _Push It_?" Mercedes whispered, grinning. Mike had always wondered how they had gotten Tina to do _Push It_, and he guessed now he had his answer.

"It took half a block of chocolate." Kurt confirmed.

"And a bag of skittles." Mercedes added.

"I think she also had two cans of soda that day." Finn whispered.

"Is that healthy?" Quinn asked.

"Pay attention." Surprisingly it was Santana's hissed whisper that alerted them to the fact that they were waiting for their cue. They all immediately jumped back into their lines, except for Tina and Brittany, who were still dancing around.

"One shot, one gunshot and BAM!" Quinn pulled Tina back into line behind her and kept her hands linked in hers to keep her there when she saw Finn's anxious facial expression, and Brittany skipped happily back to her line too. While Tina stayed in the line, she didn't stop dancing on the spot, still mouthing lyrics.

"Hey, Mister Armstein..." She finally stopped moving as their cue approached. "Here I am!" Mike took a deep breath and Finn put his hands on the side of the curtains at the front of his line.

And then Rachel sang the words that meant they could enter. "I'll march my band out!"

Kurt shared one final look with Mercedes. And then they were off.


	8. Chapter 8

A/N: **.Gleek** I realised that fanfiction for some reason cut off the first part of your name when I typed it before, so apologies for that :). This chapter is for **Adatrix** and **Average Everyday Sane Psycho.**

The song in this chapter is _Hello_ by Amy Diamond.

* * *

Noah Puckerman was not expecting what happened at school the following Tuesday. After their win at Sectionals, he had been feeling pretty good, despite the whole Finn and Quinn thing. Finn was still ignoring him and now Quinn wasn't speaking to him either due to the fact that he had told her that he didn't like it that she was supersizing. Even he knew that this was low, and really the only reason he had said it was because Azimio had been walking behind him, armed with a slushie. He knew he was in the dog box because of it and had to make it up to Quinn now.

Trying to avoid the slushie didn't even matter in the end though. Heading to Glee, and due to the fact that he was looking at his reflection in one of the drinking fountains, he felt rather than saw the icy drink splash across his arms; little droplets hitting his neck and the side of his face. To be fair, the slushie wasn't aimed at him; but nevertheless, he was still pissed off that he was partially coated in sticky drink. The annoyance changed to surprise when he realised that it had been thrown at the person walking next to him.

Matt, being a football player and an overall nice guy (that and the fact that he didn't generally attract much attention to himself) was not generally the target of slushies. But looking around to see if Rachel had been walking behind him and Karofsky had just missed his target, Puck saw that, yes, Matt had been the one that he was aiming for.

"What the hell was that for?" Matt yelled out, wiping the slushie away from his eyes. Quinn, who had also been walking with them, let out a little gasp as she wiped at the ice that had sprayed across her face.

"That one was for Truscott." Karofsky said, turning back towards Matt and Puck. "Tell Chang to watch his back." Puck shook slush from his arm.

"Are you okay?" He asked Quinn, very tempted to follow Karofsky and give him what was coming to him. The only reason he didn't was because the mother-to-be of his child was currently covered in slushie, and so settled for pulling the finger at Karofsky instead. Quinn nodded, still mad at him; brushing drink off of her hands; and Matt muttered "Yes, just swell, can't you tell?"

They were late to Glee due to the cleanup, but when they walked in, they realised that Mr. Schue still hadn't arrived.

"Chang." Puck muttered as he took a seat.

"Yeah?" Mike half turned towards him.

"Karofsky's after you." Puck said as Mr. Schue entered and asked if anyone was ready to give their performance. Brittany said excitedly, "I've been working on one!"

"He got me with a slushie." Matt said from Mike's other side. Mike frowned.

"Why?"

"Because of what happened with Truscott." A look of understanding dawned on Mike's face, but he didn't reply as Mr. Schue was motioning for Brittany to sing her song.

"Okay, Brittany, let's hear it." Mr. Schue moved to the side and Brittany stood in the place where he had been standing. Puck noticed that she was looking at Finn.

"Hello!" Brittany sung the first line, grinning happily. "We're looking for a lucky fellow. We're waiting for the next big thing. Is anybody in?" Quinn laughed from beside him as Matt started swaying to the beat. It was pretty catchy, Puck could admit that, but he was more focused on Brittany moving in her Cheerio skirt.

"Hello! Ever seen Marilyn Monroe?" Brittany twirled her ponytail around her finger, before moving towards Finn. "We need another star like that." Brittany either didn't notice the glare that she was receiving from Rachel, or didn't care very much, because she continued in her path. "We need another star like that." She moved around Finn's chair, running a finger across his back, before skipping happily back to the centre of the room. "I wonder where she's at." She started dancing along to the beat as she moved into the chorus. "Could be anyone! It could be anyone. "Hello! Hello! Could be anyone, I'm calling anyone. Hello! Hello!"

Brittany beckoned for Quinn, the closet one to her, to come and dance, singing, "Who's out there? I wonder. Where did everyone go?" Quinn laughed as Brittany shimmied towards her. "Everyone go?" As Brittany moved towards Matt, Quinn pulled on Kurt's hand to get him to dance too. Mercedes followed him, grinning. "Hey there. We wanna find a future millionaire." Brittany was moving around Matt now, leaning down to sing into his ear. "We're ready for the right idea. So hurry over here."

Tina and Artie were dancing now. Puck had noticed that they seemed to be hanging out again. As Brittany sung "Hello! We really do need a new hero." Artie reached up to twirl a blushing Tina. Puck's eyes followed Brittany as she pulled Santana after her. "Like Lady Di and Dr King. Is anybody in?"

Everyone was on their feet as Brittany sung the chorus again but Puck; Mr. Schue laughing as Quinn and Kurt shimmied towards each other and Mike danced around Rachel. It was Tina that came towards him, a grin on her face as she pulled at his arm to get him to stand. "Who's out there? I wonder." Puck saw the glare that Artie gave him and it took a minute for him to remember the party. He didn't get the issue with it. Tina was single, he was kind of single, they had both been sad, they had been getting along great. "Where did everyone go? Everyone go?"

Brittany was dancing with Finn, and Santana and Brittany were alternating the singing now. "Where did everyone go?" Santana began, wrapping an arm around Finn's waist.

"Hear me calling all you dreamers." Brittany danced over to Mike.

"Where did everyone go?"

"Hear me calling for a genius." Artie was the next to have Brittany dance around him, and she spun with Tina, before pushing her gently back to Artie.

"Where did everyone go?"

"Hear me calling all you heroes." Brittany pulled Puck's arm around her shoulders and swayed from side to side.

"Where did everyone go?"

"One more time!" Brittany laughed before she sung the chorus again. Quinn was singing along particularly loudly, thoroughly enjoying herself. "Hello! Hello! Could be anyone! It could be anyone!" Puck put his arms around her and she tensed but didn't move away. It was his apology, and her acceptance. They swayed to the beat. "Hello! Hello!"

Matt and Mike were having a dance off to the last beats of the song. Tina was sitting on the arm of Artie's chair, waving her arms from side to side. "Could be anyone. Who's out there?" Mr. Schue was watching Matt, Mike and now Santana as their dance off got sillier and sillier. Kurt and Mercedes picked up the backup-singing as Brittany sung, "I Wonder!" With a final toss of her head, Brittany put her arms in the air and sung, "Where did everyone go?"

Mr. Schue clapped as everyone moved back to their seats, congratulating Brittany on a job well done. Quinn sat next to Puck again, smiling slightly at him.

* * *

After Glee, all thought of slushies was forgotten for Puck. That was until he saw Mike heading for the bathroom, his previously white T-shirt a dull blue.

"Karofsky. Watch out, he's armed." Was the explanation as Mike passed him, looking pretty angry. Puck felt that surge of annoyance run through him. What was Karofsky's problem? As far as Puck had heard it, what had happened to Truscott had been entirely his own fault.

The annoyance increased at what he saw next. Tina was standing at her locker with Artie. And in front of his eyes, three hockey players, (Karofsky, another named something Allan, and one whose name he didn't know but was sure he had cleaned his pool at some point) approached them. Artie got most of it, from what Puck saw, but Tina got her fair share too.

It only continued throughout the day. Santana, upon hearing about what had happened to Matt and Mike, (although Puck was pretty sure it was the whole Matt thing that got her the most annoyed) retaliated. The next day, Karofsky hadn't even gotten into the school building before she got him with the icy drink.

Puck didn't know who the idiot with a death wish was, but when Santana stormed into Glee, he discovered from her angry rant about the purple stain on her uniform and the fact that she had slushie in her hair, that someone had actually dared to throw one at her. Brittany had been the only one able to calm her down, but still couldn't stop her from plotting revenge on the person who had done it to her. Puck feared for the guy's life.

Thursday, Mercedes and Kurt were in the firing line, and Puck threw one at Karofsky. He knew he wasn't helping the situation all that much, but Karofsky was an ass, and he had gotten Quinn (by accident, but still). Also, it was funny.

Rachel had narrowly avoided being hit because she had slipped in the hall and the slushie aiming for her had hit Finn in the face. (To Rachel's amusement). By Friday, Matt and Mike had packed a change of clothes in their lockers, Rachel was wearing her raincoat in the hallway, Artie always made Tina stand behind his chair (his logic was it was more likely to hit him than her and if not, she could duck) and Kurt had packed an extra bag of moist towelettes for cleanups. Tina was apologetic all the time, knowing that she was the one to blame for this. She had kicked Truscott, and the whole hockey team was rallying in support of him. Instead of going for just Tina, (and Artie, Matt and Mike for the various injuries that Truscott now had); they were hitting them as hard as they could by going for the whole Glee club team.

Although fun at first, Puck had had enough. After being hit himself on Friday morning, he called an emergency Glee meeting (he felt like an idiot) and everyone assembled in the choir room.

"We've got to do something about this." He said. "We need to fight back."

"What can we do?" Tina said quietly, shrugging. "I'm sorry guys, this is all my fault."

"It's not your fault that the hockey players are a bunch of – "

"Noah!" Rachel snapped, knowing what Puck was going to say next.

"I'm in." Santana, of course, spoke up. "What's the plan?"

"I don't think that getting even is the best way to deal with this." Rachel said.

"I'm with Rachel." Mercedes said, although she looked like she thought revenge would be fun. "It would just get worse if we fight back." Kurt nodded his head and Artie shrugged.

Brittany walked in at that moment, and everyone stopped to look at her. The silence in the room was deafening as they took in the blue slushie dripping from her hair and her face.

"Somebody threw this at me." She said, sounding confused. "I thought you were supposed to drink it." Anger bubbled within Puck. He looked around the room. Rachel looked shocked, Kurt was frowning and Mercedes was beginning to look mad. Puck didn't dare to look at Santana's face as he returned his gaze to the utterly confused Brittany in the doorway.

He almost hear what they were all thinking. Throw a slushie at him, sure. Santana, Matt, Mike, Finn? Fine. Mercedes, Kurt, Tina, Artie or Rachel? They could deal. Quinn was really pushing it, considering she was pregnant and (to Puck) his kind-of girlfriend and all.

But sweet, bubbly but ditzy Brittany? Brittany who didn't know her lefts from rights and who was incredibly naive? The Brittany who was nice to absolutely everyone and who had never purposely hurt anyone in her life? It was like kicking a puppy.

"This means war." Artie said.


	9. Chapter 9

A/N: Thanks to **Artie Tina Gleek** and **Average Everyday Sane Psycho **for your reviews :D.

* * *

Santana Lopez walked through the halls of McKinley high with a purpose, her freshly dry-cleaned uniform swishing around her. If this plan went wrong, she was going to kill all the members of Glee (not including Brittany, who was walking beside her). Slowly and painfully.

Santana tried to tell herself that she was doing this solely for her best friend, but there was always that little voice in the back of her mind which piped up when she least expected too, telling her that she actually cared about the other Glee members. Although the voice (creepily, it resembled an over-caffeinated Rachel, which was not something that Santana wanted to think about too much) definitely had a point, Santana refused to acknowledge this and focused on the task at hand. Namely, luring hockey players into their carefully set trap.

Planning the trap had been a hell of a lot of fun, in Santana's opinion. While Puck was put in charge of the actual nature of the prank, considering he was the self-proclaimed badass who had actually started the entire idea of throwing slushies at people; Rachel had taken down a list of what they would need and the details of the plan on the choir room whiteboard. The slushie war was doing what Mr. Schue's many attempted pair-bonding songs had failed to do; truly unite the Glee kids. Every single one of them was on board.

To Santana's surprise, the people who she expected to raise a fuss at their prank; the one's she considered goody-two-shoes' (like Kurt, Mercedes, Tina, Artie and particularly Rachel) raised absolutely no objections. In fact, Kurt seemed to really enjoy it; it seemed to bring out the evil dictator in him. When she had asked Tina (the least likely to go into a lecture, comment snarkily about fashion, or speak in words so long that they required a built-in encyclopaedia to understand them) if she minded that they could get in trouble, Tina had shrugged and said, "It's worth it if it stops slushies for good."

Puck had given everyone jobs to do, and Santana' and Brittany's had been to go to the locker room after hockey practise and try to get as many of the players to follow them as they could. They had been picked because, in Artie's words, they were the least likely to be beaten up or slushied themselves; and the most likely to be able to convince the players to walk into the ambush by using their "feminine charms." Santana hadn't really been paying too much attention to what he was saying though, because Tina had leaned her head on his shoulder at that point; and Santana had been torn between the urge to vomit due to the cuteness, and the urge to talk to Kurt and Mercedes about matchmaking. She had settled for a Santana Lopez Smirk (apparently her default setting) and a bitchy comment about Kurt's shoes. Which had led Kurt to start a discussion about what they needed to wear to pull off the prank.

Although most people had laughed at Kurt's clothing suggestions (especially Santana), she was amused (in a totally non-caring way, of course) when, in the last-minute preparation meeting they held that morning; Tina was in camouflage-print cargo pants, Artie (actually ditching the sweater vests for once) wearing a black T-shirt, and Mercedes and Kurt both dressed in black and wearing leather jackets and gloves. Puck, although he denied listening to Kurt completely, was also dressed as though he was a spy of some kind, and Finn was wearing a T-shirt that was patterned in a very similar way to Tina's pants.

Santana felt Brittany's pinkie link with hers as they got closer to the locker room. She knew that Brittany was excited, and hoped that she wouldn't accidently give them away.

"Ready B?" She asked as they got to the door.

"Yup." Brittany nodded. They had timed their arrival perfectly; as Santana looked in the door she saw that most of the players were gone. They didn't want to get all of them involved; otherwise the Glee kids would have a load of angry hockey players after them.

"Hey." Santana said to one of them as they came through the door. He stopped and looked at her, leaning against the doorframe. Brittany twirled her hair around her finger.

"The Cheerios are shouting you guys pizza." Santana said.

"Yeah, like a thank you and stuff." Brittany pitched in.

"Thank you for what?" Karofsky had emerged from the locker room. Santana opened her mouth to speak, but Brittany beat her too it.

"Did you know that butterflies taste with their feet?" Santana bit back the smile that threatened to break on her face. Just as often as Brittany ruined carefully set plans completely by accident, she also, sometimes, completed them. "I wonder what it would be like to taste with your feet. Except we'd probably only taste our socks, and my socks don't taste very nice." She continued, smiling sweetly.

"Anyway," Santana said, after watching the two players blink at Brittany, "the delivery van is in the car park. Let the others know, would you? First in first served." She couldn't bite back her grin as they rushed into the locker room, calling out "Free pizza in the car park!"

Artie laughed from his seat in Kurt's SUV as Tina hummed the Mission Impossible theme music under her breath. She was kneeled on the floor at his feet, ready to duck out of sight at a moment's notice, peering out the half-open window. They were waiting, partly scared, partly excited, for Puck's signal. Kurt, in the driver's seat, was glancing from Matt to Puck, both of whom were hidden behind one of the dumpsters and imitating spies as they rolled from behind one dumpster to the other.

They had decided that it was best that they all be very near their vehicles, and some, for Artie's sake, inside them so that they could make a very quick getaway. Kurt's car was parked as close as possible (not even in a car park) to the exit that they knew the hockey players would take. Matt, Mike, Puck, Finn, and Rachel were the ones out of their cars, and Rachel kept glancing nervously at the distance between Mike's car (her lift home) and the bush behind which she was hiding. Artie could see Quinn grinning at Mercedes from her seat in the backseat of Mercedes' car. Artie's phone went off, and he looked down at the screen.

_New Message from Santana: The bait has been taken._ He showed Tina, watching as her face broke into a mischievous smile. He couldn't help but notice how pretty she looked, even when looking like an evil mastermind. Trying to push those thoughts away, (_Tina's your friend, dating didn't really work out all that well)_ and not really succeeding (_but you want her to be more)_; Artie grinned back at her. Her smile faded and she seemed to notice the change in mood. She put her hands on the seat on either side of his legs and turned to face him, pushing herself up and beginning to lean forward. His heart beating unnaturally fast, he leaned down at the same time.

They were just millimetres apart when Kurt let out an excited laugh and said, "Ready?" Artie and Tina jumped as if electrocuted and Tina snapped her head to look at Kurt. He seemed to realise that he had unintentionally interrupted something, because his mouth formed an 'o' and he turned back to the window. Only to let out another laugh and say, "This is it!"

Artie looked back out the window, cursing Kurt and his bad timing, to see Puck waving madly at them (Quinn and Mercedes saw too) and Matt, who in turn signalled to Rachel and Mike, both hidden from Puck's view. Tina opened the car door and climbed out, very quietly shutting it behind her. After fully winding down the window for Artie, Kurt did the same. They moved around the other side of the car, crouching out of sight. Both Quinn and Mercedes stayed inside Mercedes' car; they were parked closer to the building.

And then two hockey players came into view, looking for the mysterious non-existent pizza delivery truck. Artie watched as Santana and Brittany moved into his line of sight, and heard Santana say, "Right over here." From his hiding place, Puck led the countdown, holding up his fingers for them to see.

_Three._ Santana led the hockey players to place they had found to be right in the centre of all their hiding places.

_Two._ There were seven of them, Artie counted. If they did end up attempting a fight, at least they weren't outnumbered.

_One._ "ATTACK!" Puck yelled, and Artie knew that Puck had probably been dreaming of yelling that all day. He heard Tina let out a giggle and jump around the car with Kurt. Santana and Brittany bolted out of the line of fire to Rachel and what she had waiting for them.

Two giant water guns; two of twelve that they had all found going cheap at the local toy shop. Except instead of filling them with water, they were filled with slushie.

From Artie's place in the car, he caught the facial expression pass across Karofsky's face, and that alone made the whole ordeal worthwhile. He joined in the one-sided slushie-fight, aiming the water pistol out the window and managing to get the hockey player closest to him. Tina was having a blast, he could tell, aiming mostly for Karofsky.

As Puck had predicted, once the element of surprise wore off, the hockey players started to react. Most of them seemed to just be frozen in place, shielding their faces, but Karofsky was trying to see who was hitting him. He couldn't see much, due to the fact that there was slushie coming at all seven of them from twelve different directions, but made his way in a random direction (towards Rachel) blindly. Rachel backed up fast, moving to stand near Mike and Brittany, and dodging Santana's slushie. Brittany giggled madly, hopping up and down on the spot.

Kurt backed up fast too as he realised that his water gun was nearly out of slushie. There was a yell as Matt backed away from the only other player to actually try to move away, getting him straight in the face. Quinn's gun was the first to run out, and Mercedes took off with a squealing of tires, tossing her half-full water gun to Puck before she did so.

"I'm out!" Kurt called to Tina, who was happily spraying one of the players that had gotten her and Artie in the hall that day. Puck yelled out, "How do you like that?" as his water gun ran out too, and he picked up Mercedes' from next to him. Brittany said, "I think I broke it," causing Santana to call, "Later bitches." There was a slamming door, and Santana and Brittany drove off too, tooting the horn all the way out of the almost-empty parking lot.

Mike and Rachel were the next ones to go; Finn jumping into the car at the last minute. Puck and Tina were the only ones with slushie left, as Artie had given his water gun to Tina when he saw how much fun she was having. Kurt watched as four of the hockey players ran back to the building, one of them stayed kind of frozen in place (it did make Kurt feel a little bad for him), the one that had been following Matt was moving across the parking lot to his car, and Karofsky making his way towards Puck. Puck was moving towards his truck; Matt already seated in the driver's seat.

"You're going to get it Puckerman." Karofsky yelled. Tina jumped in the car on Artie's other side, squealing and yelling, "Drive, Kurt, drive!" Artie knew that Karofsky was actually highly unlikely to really hurt them, but laughed giddily along with her as Kurt stepped on the gas, pulling out of the carpark and into the street.

"Wooo!" Kurt yelled out the window, causing Tina to laugh harder.

"We got them so good!" Artie said. "Did you see Karofsky's face?"

"I can't believe it actually worked." Tina said, after her laughter and the adrenaline rush had calmed down a bit.

It was only later on, sitting on his bed, that the afternoon truly caught up with Artie. Firstly, he and Tina had been just seconds away from kissing, so clearly she still felt something for him. And secondly, they had really hit back at the hockey players.

Tomorrow was going to be a very, very interesting day.


	10. Chapter 10

A/N: Thanks to **CarmenMauri**, **Average Everyday Sane Psycho** and **Artie Tina Gleek** for your reviews :). If you do read, please drop me a review, its crazy how much they make my day :D.

The song in this chapter is Battlefield by Jordin Sparks.

* * *

Rachel Berry tried desperately to avoid the inevitable the next day. However, she knew that she was going to be slushied at some point.

Rachel had arrived at school and looked around the car nervously. Waving goodbye to her dad, she almost ran through the parking lot and into the school building. She knew there was going to be retaliation from the hockey team.

She reached her locker without any troubles, and as she pulled out her books and responded to a text message from Jesse (she got butterflies when she saw the little x on the end of his message) she thought that maybe, today wouldn't be so bad. Famous last words.

She had just shut her locker door when she saw them. Not one hockey player, or two, or even three. Five. Five hockey players, all armed. And it was too late to try to escape.

"Berry." One of them said as they circled her, backing her up against the lockers.

"Just do it." Rachel said, shutting her eyes.

"Rutherford!" One of the hockey players yelled out, and Rachel opened her eyes just a crack to see what was going on. Just in time to see the purple slushie heading for her face.

She really did owe Matt, who had turned up just in time for her to get just three of the five slushies. Bad, but not as bad as all five; two of which had ended up all over Matt. A group of Cheerios had passed by at that point, all carrying slushie cups, and Rachel had shut her eyes again. She was incredibly surprised when the Cheerios didn't throw them at either herself or Matt.

The Cheerios demonstrated exactly where their allegiance lay when they tossed the drink at the hockey players. Santana sauntered down the hall after the small group, smirking at them.

"Good one." She said, causing the hockey players to glare at her. Kurt had approached at that point, taking one look at Rachel and leading her to the bathroom for clean up.

It didn't surprise Rachel as much when the football players joined in too. However, they seemed to have no allegiance to anyone. It became somewhat of a free-for-all; and nobody was safe in the halls. Rachel had no idea why Figgins had not stepped in, and was seriously considering going to him with her thoughts and objections to the whole situation. (_Note to self: prepare an argument the moment you get home; imperative to include a reference to dad and daddy_).

Rachel saw all of her fellow Glee clubbers hit at some point; even Brittany and Santana. Santana went for the guy this time, and it took Matt and Finn to pull her off of him, and pull her into the choir room where Mr. Schue was waiting to start Glee. She sat angrily, accepting the towel that Mercedes offered her; but refused to change into any of the selection of clothes offered by the rest of the club. Rachel didn't think that Santana needed to respond quite so viciously to her offer of her cat-print sweater; she was only trying to help.

"So guys, has anyone made any progress on the assignment this week?" Mr. Schue began. He had given them all the task of singing a song that expressed some sort of conflict; based, (rather obviously, in Rachel's opinion) on all the drama that had been going on. From relationship drama to slushie wars to marriage breakdowns to pregnancy issues; Rachel agreed that singing about these conflicts would help the situation. She was about to raise her hand when Tina put hers up slowly.

"Mr. Schue?" Tina spoke tentatively from her seat next to Quinn and Artie. "I have something that I've been working on. Can I show everyone?" Mr. Schue looked surprised, but nodded enthusiastically.

"Um, so this is kind of about the whole slushie situation. Well, that and everything." Tina said, and then nodded towards Brad and the drummer.

"Don't try to explain your mind, I know what's happening here." She begun, a bit too quiet, Rachel thought, but hitting each note well. Tina had her eyes closed, her arms raising slowly in front of her as she sung. "One minute, it's love, and, suddenly, it's like a battlefield." Her eyes opened and her voice got louder. Rachel could see her overcoming the nerves, relaxing into the music. It was a beautiful thing to witness; each protective barrier Tina had up against the world fell away until it was just Tina and the music.

"One word turns into a war, why is it the smallest things that tear us down? My world's nothing when you're gone I'm out here without a shield. Can't go back, now." Tina looked at them all as she sung, but Rachel noticed that she mostly looked at Artie; and realised what the 'everything' truly meant. Tina was getting some closure about the whole fight thing that had happened with Artie.

Tina smiled as she moved through the song. She didn't have as many years of training as she did, Rachel had to say, but she was really feeling the song. "Both hands tied behind my back for nothing. Oh, no, these times when we climb so fast to fall again. Why we gotta fall for it, now?" Rachel started everyone in the backup vocals. She was getting more and more used to being in the background, and found that she didn't mind it as much as the initially thought she would.

Tina grinned widely as she sung, "I never meant to start a war." She sounded as though she was trying not to laugh. "You know, I never wanna hurt you. Don't even know we're fighting for." Quinn was harmonizing nicely, and Rachel felt so proud that Quinn had actually listened to her advice and taken it. She made a mental note to tell Quinn this later. (_Quinn can really harmonize_).

"Why does love always feel like a battlefield, a battlefield, a battlefield? Why does love always feel like a battlefield, a battlefield, a battlefield? Why does love always feel like..."

Tina never danced along to the songs like Brittany, or walked around theatrically like Rachel, or attempted to move to the beat like Finn; she stayed in one place, but still threw her whole body into the song, bending slightly when adding more power to the lyrics, moving her arms, and tapping one foot along to the beat. "Can't swallow our pride, neither of us wanna raise that flag. Oooh, if we can't surrender then we're both gonna lose what we have. Oh, no."

Rachel heard Artie join in the next bit, and Tina seemed to be surprised but didn't stop singing herself, a small smile spreading across her face. "Both hands tied behind my back for nothing." This allowed Tina to sing a higher, "nothing" over Artie's, and Rachel saw how impromptu it was, but at the same time very beautiful. "Oh, no, these times when we climb so fast to fall again. I don't wanna fall for it, now."

Rachel saw Artie's participation as him understanding Tina's double meaning as well as Rachel herself did, and was in awe of how good their voices sounded together. She looked at Mr. Schue, who was smiling, and made another mental note. (_Tell Mr. Schue that Artie and Tina need more duets_).

"I never meant to start a war. You know, I never wanna hurt you. Don't even know we're fighting for." Mike was on his feet, dancing around Tina; and Rachel let him pull her to her feet and join in. He spun around her, and Rachel put the mental-note folder part of her brain to good use again. (_Get Mike to teach you that dance move_)."Why does love always feel like a battlefield, a battlefield, a battlefield? Why does love always feel like a battlefield, a battlefield, a battlefield?"

Rachel didn't know why Mike had picked her to dance, but she was really enjoying the way it felt to be voluntarily included in that way. Usually he would pick Brittany. As he spun her, she grinned. (_Thank Mike later_). Santana was singing loudly, clearly letting her anger out into the song. Rachel was glad; it meant that she wouldn't be Santana's first target. "Guess you'd better go and get your armour." Tina began, letting Santana take the echoes. "Get your armour!" Santana stood up as she and Tina sang back and forth.

"Get your armour!"

"Get your armour!" If Rachel had been singing, she would have put up a fuss, but saw how into it Santana was. Cue the next mental note: _Santana uses singing as an outlet_.

"I guess you better go and get your armour!" This time, Mercedes sung one of the echoes, and Quinn laughed and did the final one.

"Get your armour!

"Get your armour."

"Get your armour."

"I guess you'd better go and get your..." Tina stopped moving as the song slowed. Mike started dancing slower, and Rachel used her extensive ballet training to adjust and dance along with him.

"We can pretend that we are friends tonight..." Rachel saw Finn as he "O-o-o-ed" and laughed slightly at Puck, trying to appear as though he wasn't actually having a good time and singing along under his breath. She then suppressed a squeal of surprise as Mike picked her up, still dancing along; but managed to just go along with it. (_Organised routine is great, but maybe this is okay too?_).

"...and in the morning we'd wake up and we'd be alright. 'Coz baby we don't have to fight. And I don't want this love to feel like a battlefield..." Brittany threw her fist into the air as she sung "Oh!"

"...a battlefield..."

"Oh!"

"...a battlefield! Why does love always feel like a battlefield, a battlefield, a battlefield?" Tina hadn't drawn enough breath; and Rachel noticed, singing the next line to help her out. "Guess you'd better go and get your armour!" Tina shot her a grateful smile, inhaling deeply.

"I never meant to start a war..." As the club started the chorus, Tina's voice took off above them, harmonising and powerful, something Rachel had never heard her do, or believe she actually could do. "Start a war."

(_Tina is much, much better than you ever thought. Apologise about the whole Tonight debacle. And try to get her to come out of her shell a bit more_). Rachel and Mike sat down again, but Mike kept moving his feet to the music.

"You know, I never wanna hurt you. Don't even know we're fighting for."

"What are we fighting for?" Tina was really belting the higher notes.

"Why does love always feel like a battlefield, a battlefield, a battlefield? Why does love always feel like a battlefield, a battlefield, a battlefield?" Mercedes was singing loudly too, her "He-e-e-ey!" blending nicely with Tina's voice, and Rachel joined in too; earning her beaming smile from Tina.

"I guess you better go and get your armour..." Matt and Artie clapped along with the beat.

"Get your armour!" Tina laughed happily as Quinn gathered enough confidence to put in a "Ye-e-e-yeahhh!"

"Get your armour!"

"Get your armour!"

"I guess you better go and get your armour!"

"Get your armour!" Kurt put in loudly.

"Get your armour!"

"Why does love always feel like..."

"Whoo-o-oo-oa!"

"Why does love always feel like?"

"Whoo-o-oo-oa!" Tina put her hands up, and everyone's singing faded out in surprise. She took a deep breath and shut her eyes again, putting the most power that Rachel had ever heard from her behind her final line, as the music slowed and faded. Rachel was amazed; although she wasn't as good as Mercedes, but she was definitely attempting (and pulling off) a 'wail on the last note,' drawing out the word 'battlefield.'

"Why does love always feel like a battlefield! O-o-o-o-oh!" The music stopped when she did, and she peeked her eyes open to look at them.

They were mostly looking shocked that shy little Tina could pull that off. It actually reminded Rachel of the assembly after _Push It_ when everyone had just kind of stared at them. Artie was the first to break the silence, clapping loudly and yelling, "Way to go, Tina!" Everybody else joined in, Brittany standing up and clapping wildly; Mr. Schue putting a hand on her back and saying, "That was really good Tina!" Rachel stood up, moving towards Tina with a small smile and saying, "Tina, you know I never really apologised for my atrocious behaviour regarding the Tonight solo. I was very wrong." Tina's smile was worth the awkwardness that Rachel felt whenever she apologised. She threw her arms around her, and Rachel hugged back, saying, "So, I am sorry about that Tina."

Rachel never ceased to find it amazing that one song could say shed so much light on a person, or people, or a situation. Apart from the slushie war going on, life was good.

And the slushie war was very close to ending.


	11. Chapter 11

A/N: I already had this written on my computer (it was actually one of the first parts of this story that I wrote) so I couldn't wait any longer to update. The next part is written too, so should be up tomorrow.

Thanks to **Artie Tina Gleek** (I'm glad I made your night :) Stories to that to me too and I'm glad I could pass on the happiness :D), **Average Everyday Sane Psycho **(I've always imagined Rachel being someone who took lots of mental notes and then checked them off later lol. Maybe that's just me...) and **CarmenMauri** (for when you get to this chapter :P).

It gets a little more dramatic here... Insanely long author's note over, and here's the chapter :)

* * *

  
Although he did enjoy seeing the hockey players get a taste of their own medicine, and found the way that the football team had joined in so wholeheartedly funny; Mike hated the fact that he was one of the biggest targets of the hockey team. And, as they say, it's all fun and games until someone gets hurt. He had a horrible feeling that somebody was going to get hurt.

Mike was leaving Glee rehearsal when the hockey player approached him.

He and Rachel, of all people, were the last to leave today; she seemed reluctant to be anywhere near Finn (something about how she had turned Finn down again) and he had wanted to talk to her about the dance that he had been doing during Tina's song. She had asked him for help on a particular step and so they had spent the next ten minutes going over it. It shocked him that the great Rachel Berry had actually asked him for help. And taken it too.

They were halfway down the hall, and he was listening to her ramble about her ballet class, of all things, when the hockey player ran around the corner, nearly colliding with them. He stopped and then said, "You're in Glee." Rachel nodded her head slowly, looking at Mike with a 'what does he mean?' look.

"The girl from Glee, the goth one, she's hurt." He said.

"Where is she?" Mike asked, worried immediately.

"Around the corner and down the hall." The hockey player pointed. Mike was off, with Rachel on his heels, in a second. He turned at the crossroad of the corridors wondering which way to turn. The hockey player hadn't exactly been precise in his directions. Rachel stopped at the same time Mike did; and pausing, they heard a dull _thud_ and then a small groaning noise. Rachel turned to him, and whispered, "Did you hear that?" He nodded and they hurried around the corner.

And there they found Tina. The figure on the floor would have been unrecognisable, if not for the purple streaks in her hair, which was fanned out over her shoulders. Her knees were pulled up to her chest, and she was leaning against the door of the janitor's closet. She was sitting in a puddle of purple ice, and Mike couldn't help the wave of anger that ran through him. He was sick of the slushie attacks.

Rachel leaned over, putting a hand on her shaking shoulders.

"Tina?" She asked gently, and Mike was surprised that Rachel could be so calm. Then Tina looked up at them.

Rachel had to bite her lip to stop the scream from escaping through her teeth. Mike's eyes widened and he was immediately kneeling next to her, tilting her face gently up in his hands.

"Who did this?" He asked, unable to stop the horror that crept into his tone.

The right side of Tina's face was swelling, her eye almost closed already. There was a thin line of blood trickling from a small cut above her eye and purple and blue bruising was beginning to show around her eye. Tina swallowed.

"I feel dizzy." She said in a light, faraway voice. Rachel looked at Mike, clearly unsure of what to do. This was weird to Mike. He never thought he'd see Rachel lost for words.

"Tina, do you think you can walk?" Mike said gently, but Tina only looked at him, and her good eye seemed to be out of focus.

"I think she's in shock." Rachel said. "I read about it –"

"Keep her talking. Keep her awake." Mike cut Rachel off as the start of a Rachel-ramble seemed obvious. "We need to get this checked out. If she's dizzy, something could be wrong." Rachel nodded. That was the good thing about Rachel – give her a task, and she'd do it.

Rachel picked up Tina's bag as Mike assessed the easiest way to get Tina off the ground.

"Tina, what happened?" Rachel asked as Mike slipped his arms around Tina's huddled form and pulled her up. Tina froze as he adjusted her in his arms. Then she twisted frantically.

"Put me down." She said, panic obvious in her tone.

"Tina, it's just me. It's just Mike. I'm going to carry you out to my car, okay?" Tina took a long look at Mike's face and then relaxed. Mike took this as the cue to start walking, Rachel at his side.

"Tina?" Rachel said again, nudging her shoulder. "Who did this?" Tina looked at Rachel.

"Um..." She blinked, then winced. "It hurts."

Rachel pulled Tina's phone out of her bag and pushed a few buttons. Mike didn't really know what she was doing but just let it go as he concentrated on getting Tina to his car. She wasn't heavy, hell, she was tiny – about the same size as Rachel – but he didn't want to bump her on anything.

As they reached the car, Rachel murmured, "No one is answering."

"Who?" Mike asked. Rachel opened the back door of the car and helped Tina with the seatbelt. Tina just seemed to have given up doing anything at this point. It made Mike think something was wrong.

"Her house." Rachel said and pulled out her own phone. "I'll try Artie." Mike nodded in understanding, looking at both girls in the back seat in the rear view mirror as he pulled out of the car park. Tina's eyes were shut tight, her hands gripping the seat.

"Tina, we do need to know what happened." Rachel said hesitantly, as she pushed the button on her phone again and put it to her ear.

"I slipped." Tina said, as though she had just realised the most obvious fact in the world. "In slushie."

"Who threw the slushie?" Rachel kept talking.

"It was a hockey player." She finally said, as Rachel pushed another button and looked frustrated. Artie obviously did not want to speak to Rachel. Rachel tried again, with Tina's phone, but groaned, saying, "Her battery just died." Mike passed his phone over to Rachel to call with.

"Which hockey player, Tina?" Mike pressed, as he turned the corner.

"That one who is tall. Um... Jesse...Jason..."

"Joseph? Joseph Allan?" Mike asked. Tina nodded. Mike clenched his fists against the steering wheel.

"I was leaving after Glee." Tina started, still sounding kind of distant. "And then they came out of nowhere. And they..." She trailed off, looking out the window again. Rachel made an annoyed sound and handed Mike his phone back.

"Maybe he's busy?" Rachel wondered, pushing more buttons on her phone.

"Who is busy?" Tina sounded so much like Brittany that the situation would have been funny, if Mike wasn't worried that Tina might collapse at any given moment.

"What happened next, Tina?" Mike asked, but Tina just blinked.

"Mercedes? Hi, it's Rachel. No, don't hang up, Tina's hurt." This seemed to stop Mercedes from hanging up effectively.

"We found her in the corridor. She won't tell us what happened other than she slipped in slushie and it involved some hockey players." Mercedes said something.

"Yes, I tried, but he's not answering. I don't know his home number." Mercedes said something, and then he heard her say, "Is Tina okay?"

"Not really." Rachel said. "If you get hold of him, can you get him to call me please?" Rachel hung up the phone.

"It hurts." Tina whimpered suddenly.

"It's okay." Rachel soothed, "Where does it hurt?" Mike saw the hospital sign and sighed in relief.

"Here." To Mike's surprise, Tina didn't point to her swelling face, but side of her head, at the top. Rachel turned Tina's entire body towards her and pulled herself around in her seat to see what was hurting. Mike's blood ran cold as Rachel emitted a tiny gasp. He pulled into a car park and wasted no time in getting out of the car. _Defying Gravity_ suddenly rung out of Rachel's pocket.

"Artie?" Rachel answered her phone as Mike pulled Tina out of the car. Tina didn't put up a fight this time, wrapping her arms around his neck and leaning her head against his shoulder as though she couldn't hold her head up any longer. Mike could hear Artie speaking frantically on the other end of the phone. "We're at the hospital. We found out that it was some hockey players, but we haven't been able to get anything else out of her. I called her house but nobody answered." Rachel was walking by Mike's side again and Mike could hear Artie say, "Her parents are away. I'll be there soon." They were pulled into a waiting room by a nurse as they entered the hospital. It was Lima General, not particularly big, and as usual, pretty full.

Mike hoped that they wouldn't have to wait very long; he was seriously concerned. The nurse took one look at Tina's face and led them through to a small room. Mike sat Tina down on the hospital bed. When Rachel said, "she's got a deep cut, and I think she hit her head," the nurse disappeared off, returning with some ice, which she directed Rachel to hold against Tina's swollen face. Rachel handed him the ice and tried to fill out the form that the nurse had given her. She filled it out the best she could, with Mike's help, but neither of them even knew Tina's middle name, and Tina was just staring at the wall now. It wasn't very long, maybe a couple of minutes, before a doctor came through the door. Tina seized and then wouldn't release Mike's hand, so he left it in hers.

"Hello." The doctor said, "I'm Dr. Ashworth. What have we here?"

"We found her in a school hall like this." Rachel began. "I think she's in shock. She's being really unresponsive."

The doctor asked a few more questions, "Did she hit her head?" and "How unresponsive?" were included; before he examined Tina's face and then shined a light into her eyes. Well, the eye that wasn't now swollen completely shut.

"Where does it hurt?" He asked as he was looking at the swelling. Tina pointed at the same spot on her head that she had previously, and Mike sucked in a breath as he realised what he hadn't seen.

Because of the slushie coating her hair, and because her hair was so dark, you wouldn't immediately notice the blood on the side of her head, leaking from a cut just below her hairline. He remembered the blood from the cut above her eye, but hadn't thought that it was anywhere else. The cut looked deep.

As a nurse was cleaning up Tina's face and gently wiping slushie away from the cut, Rachel's phone went off. "Artie? Yes." She hung up and headed out of the room, saying over her shoulder, "Artie's here." Tina turned slowly to face Mike.

"Artie?" For the first time that afternoon, Tina seemed truly aware of what was happening. As the doctor returned, Rachel did too, with Artie in tow.

"Tina!" He exclaimed. Mike had to give the guy credit; he only paled slightly as he saw her face. "Were you wrestling with the ironing board again?" It was a weak joke, but it made Tina smile. Then wince as the side of her face was pulled. Mike noticed how Artie's gaze lingered on their linked hands.

"Hey Artie." She said quietly.

"Okay guys, I'm afraid there's not going to be enough room for all of you." Dr. Ashworth moved to Tina's side. Mike nodded, gently pulled his hand from Tina's and stood, pulling on Rachel's arm to move her out of the room.

"We'll be in the waiting room." Rachel said.

* * *

Artie had been shocked when he'd taken in Tina's face, but tried to hide the reaction for her. He doubted she would have had the chance to look in the mirror yet and he didn't want her to freak out. Knowing how scared of hospitals she was, he held her hand and distracted her from the stitches being applied to her head. The doctor had given him Tina's paperwork, saying that Rachel had done her best but she said that he would be able to do better. Artie filled out the rest of the form, asking Tina gently when he didn't know the answer to questions.

"Tee, how did this happen?" She shut her eyes. "I slipped in slushie." She finally said. "And hit my head on the janitor's closet doorknob on the way down." Artie knew that this wasn't the whole truth, but let it go for now, writing 'Slipped and hit a doorknob' in the part of the form that asked to explain the accident. Talking to Tina distracted him from his anger at the people in the hockey team who had done this to her. He was glad to hear, for now at least, that they hadn't actually hit her. That would have been too much.

Finally, the doctor said he was done, prescribing painkillers and instructing Artie, (Tina was now groggy and trying, but failing to pay attention) on how to take care of the cut and the swelling. He talked about signs of concussion and made Tina drink a glass of water before she left. As they left, and met Mike and Rachel in the waiting room, Artie turned to them.

"Thank you for calling me Rachel." He said. Tina smiled in a sleepy kind of way and said, "I owe you guys. Sorry you had to lug me around Mike." Artie realised that Mike had obviously been carrying her around. This made him feel strangely jealous. He then kicked himself for being irrational.

"Do you guys need a lift?" Mike asked, rubbing the back of his neck as they walked, rolled and shuffled (in Tina's case) out to the car park.

"No, my mom's here." Artie said. "Thank you, really for everything." Mike nodded, and he and Rachel waved before heading back out to his car.

"Tee, mom couldn't get a park so she drove round the block." Tina nodded, allowing Artie to take her hand again as he pulled his phone out with the other. A few minutes later, Mrs. Abrams pulled the van over to the drop-off zone.

Mrs. Abrams, when she saw Tina's face and heard the doctor's warning about concussions was adamant that Tina stay with them for the night. She called Mrs. Cohen-Chang and explained the situation, and when it was all sorted set up the bed for Tina in the guest room. She fussed over Tina, making sure she ate, changed into a pair of Artie's old pyjamas and took her painkillers before saying goodnight. Artie brought Tina to his room to watch a movie (she said that she didn't want to go to sleep just yet), but, not surprisingly within the first twenty minutes, Tina was asleep.

Artie didn't know where he stood with his best friend. They were past the awkward stage after the whole stutter thing, and although they were definitely friends again, Artie didn't know if Tina wanted to try dating again. He knew he wanted to; having his best friend sleeping beside him felt so right. Her bandaged head was tucked on the pillow next to him, her face close to his. He could see the injured part of her face in the half-light of the television, and the anger that began to boil in him was strong. Even if they hadn't hit her, they'd left her, clearly hurt. He was yet to get the full story out of her, but he would eventually.

As Artie was about to move to the spare room, Tina rolled from lying on her back onto her side; one of her arms bumping against his shoulder. She moved into his chest in her sleep, wrapping her arm around him and exhaling deeply. Not wanting to wake her, (and honestly pretty happy just where he was) Artie switched off the television, pulled off his glasses and settled down to sleep.

She could tell him what had happened in the morning.


	12. Chapter 12

A/N: Thanks to **JustRelax**, **Average Everyday Sane Psycho** and **Artie Tina Gleek**.

This chapter is mostly fluff. But fluff is cute, right?

Random question: Favourite ice cream flavours?

* * *

Tina woke up with a throbbing head. Déjà-vu hit her like a ton of bricks; and wondering if she had been to another one of Rachel's parties, she opened her eyes groggily. It was dark, obviously very early morning. She froze as she realised that she was wrapped in a pair of arms, with her head very close to said person's chest. _Holy crap_. Tina started to freak out. _I've gone home with a random stranger. Curse Rachel and Puck. _

As her rational side caught up with the freaking out side, Tina realised that this was Artie (of course, who else would it be? And she couldn't exactly go home with a random stranger from a Glee club party anyway); she was at Artie's house and safe, and warm. Artie would not have let anything bad happen to her.

Tina wracked her protesting brain for memories of getting to Artie's house. She couldn't remember a Glee club party, at all. Or any mentions of one. And suddenly it all came back. Joseph Allan and his hockey friends, taunting her, laughing, pouring purple slushie. Trying to run but slipping. Catching her head on the hinge as she fell and slamming into the doorknob. The hockey players taking one look at the blood and fleeing. Rachel's voice, too quiet for Rachel. Mike's arms, carrying her to the car. And then Artie's pale face in the hospital, worried. She wondered what she looked like to warrant that expression.

Artie was stirring now, stretching out his arms and then relaxing again. He pulled her closer subconsciously and she made the most of it. The way he was holding her may not have been best-friend-like, _at all_, but she wasn't complaining. She liked being this close to him, in his arms. She felt safe.

His eyes opened and he looked down to see her looking up at him.

"Hey Tee." He said, yawning. She felt warm fuzzies when he didn't move away from her. From the small smile on his face, she guessed he liked having her so close. "How are you feeling?"

"Sore." Tina admitted. "But I bet I look worse than I feel. I needed stitches, didn't I?"

"What happened?" Artie asked, gently pushing hair away from the bruising around her eye. The bandage on her head looked kind of like a sweatband.

"I was leaving Glee after talking to Mr. Schue." Tina started from the beginning, revelling in the touch of his fingers against her skin. "And then Joseph Allan, you know, the really tall hockey player? He came out of nowhere with these other guys. They backed me up against the lockers before I could run. Said some stuff, like they usually do. It made me mad, so I back-chatted them and they threw slushie in my face. More than one actually. When I tried to make a break for it, I slid in the slushie and fell – I hit my head on the janitor's closet doorknob. It was an impressive fall, I'm sure; I managed to cut myself on the door hinge on the way to the doorknob."

"I can't believe the jerks just _left_." Artie said.

"One of them tried to stay." Tina admitted, looking slightly guilty. Artie grinned suddenly at the look on her face.

"What did you do to him?"

"I told him to, um, well, I swore at him." She said. "And then he left too. Then Mike and Rachel found me." She paused. "It's kind of fuzzy, to be honest. But I can remember the look on Mike's face when he saw me, it –" She stopped as Artie tensed.

"What?" She said, meeting his gaze with her good eye. "What's wrong?"

"Nothing." Artie said, too quickly. Tina just looked at him. The usually effective 'I-don't-believe-you-so-you-better-tell-the-truth look' was not so effective with one eye and a puffy face, and Artie tried not to laugh. Tina glared, then winced.

"Continue." Artie said, ignoring the elbow jab she gave him.

"I still sort of can't believe that he was so kind. I mean, even he was throwing slushies at us at the beginning of the year, and here he was being all caring and making sure I was okay." Artie swallowed his jealous remark the best he could. He had a lot to thank Mike for, taking care of Tina like that. But it still stung. Tina looked up at him.

"Artie?" She went back through the conversation and frowned as she tried to figure out what she'd said that would hurt him. She couldn't think of it at all...unless. Mike.

Artie avoided Tina's gaze. He had no right to be jealous, Tina was single. Except the way that she was letting him hold her, and they way that he liked it, said that they were more than just best friends.

"Artie, are you..." Tina suddenly looked as though she was holding back a smile. "Are you jealous?" Artie's mouth opened then closed, but he didn't say anything. He was trying to phrase what he wanted to say. Tina looked at him, and then thought about how she could confront the issues that she wanted to talk about. She knew how she felt about this boy. She had known him for a long time, been his best friend, been through everything with him. She knew that she loved him, and maybe, even if he didn't love her yet, he at least liked her. She had to tell him. And she had to do it now, while she had this courage.

"Artie, Mike's... just a friend." She said quickly. "He..." She swallowed, hoping that Artie wouldn't overreact to what she had to say next. "He found me that day, after the whole stutter thing in the corridor." Tina looked away. "I was... upset–"

"I know." Artie cut her off. He didn't want to hear her try to describe how she had been really hurt in the most tactful way she could. It was painful for him to remember that he had hurt her so badly, and her trying to make it seem like less that it was to avoid making him feel guilty was just having the opposite effect. "Mike cornered me after." Tina looked shocked, and her eyes snapped back to his.

"I told him not to." Tina said. Artie shook his head, amazed that even after he'd been a total jackass to her, she had tried to protect him still.

"No, I needed to hear what he had to say." Artie said. "He basically told me that if I ever hurt you like that again, then he would be returning the favour. His exact words, I believe, were, 'I'm not above punching a cripple, Wheels.'" Tina winced again.

"That was low." She muttered quietly. She wasn't frowning, because it pulled at the cut over her eye when she tried to, but her lips were set in an angry expression.

"Tee, I deserved it." Artie said.

"No, you didn't. You weren't the only 'bad guy' in that fight. We were both wrong. So if Mike's threatening you, someone needs to threaten me too. I hurt you as well. Neither of us is perfect." They were silent for a bit.

"Artie, don't be jealous." She broke the silence as she scooted up the bed, until her eyes were in line with his. "Can I tell you something?" Tina asked quietly. Artie was suddenly aware of the mood change in the room. The calmness had become tense. Extremely so. He took in a breath.

She took his silence as acceptance, inhaled and said, "Artie... to me, you're not just my best friend anymore, and you're not just my silly schoolgirl crush anymore either. I mean look at us." She gestured to how his arms were still around her, how one of her hands was draped over his waist and how the other was on his chest. He was also pretty sure that her legs were wrapped around his. She raised her gaze to his eyes again before she could talk herself out of saying what she need to say. His blue eyes locked on hers made her chicken out only slightly, too scared of rejection to use the L-word strongly, instead saying, "I'm pretty sure that I'm falling in love with you."

The world seemed to stop as she said this, but he was brought crashing back down to reality by an alarm going off upstairs. They both glanced at the ceiling, and Artie realised it was his parent's alarm clock. And then suddenly Tina leapt up, wobbling slightly on unsteady legs, and then moved from the room, shutting the door behind her. At first he was scared that she'd thought his silence was lack of reciprocation on his part, but realised that she had remembered that she was supposed to be in the guestroom.

He was glad that he now had time to think though. He knew that he was pretty sure that he was falling in love with Tina too, but hadn't been prepared for her confession. His alarm blared beside him and he hit the 'off' button with a groan. Stupid alarms.

Tina lay shaking in the guestroom, adrenaline running through her body from her quick escape from Artie's room. She couldn't believe that she'd told him. But he hadn't said anything. She didn't know whether to feel hurt and rejected, or hopeful.

There was a gentle knock at her door, and Mrs. Abrams moved into the room.

"Tina, honey, are you awake?" Tina sat up, slowly, as the pain in her head caught up with her.

"Yes, I'm awake." She said.

"How are you feeling?" Mrs. Abrams asked.

"Other than a bit sore, I'm fine." Mrs. Abrams told her she was going to turn on the light. As light filled the room, Tina caught sight of herself in the mirror across from the bed. She couldn't stifle the gasp that escaped her, and she was on her feet in a second, moving to stare at her reflection. Her right eye was open now, but the skin around it was purple. She stared for a second, and then couldn't help it. She burst into giggles. Mrs. Abrams looked shocked.

"I look like a racoon!" She gasped out, still mostly shocked at how bad her face looked. "A racoon who likes to do aerobics." She continued to giggle as she touched the bandage. As she looked closer, she could see the distinct shape of the doorknob imprinted in her skin and when she pointed it out, Mrs. Abrams joined in her laughter.

"What's going on?" Artie wheeled into the hall behind his mom.

"My...face..." Tina gasped out. "Look, you can see the doorknob." Artie wheeled closer to look, and when he saw it, couldn't help but laugh too.

"Oh Tee. You have to admit though; it's a beautiful battle scar. You're going to have fun when Kurt and Mercedes see this."

"Yeah, but the story is so boring in comparison." Tina laughed as they headed down the hall to the kitchen. Tina's voice was too cheery, too false. Artie knew that she was thinking about what she had let slip. Probably worrying about it.

"Tee." Artie stopped, and she stopped too, abruptly, and turned to look at him. He waited until he could hear the kitchen cupboards opening and closing before he said quietly, "About what you said –" Tina waited, her heart pounding. He grinned, pushing his hair out of his eyes.

"I'm pretty sure that I'm falling in love with you too."


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: This is the fluffyish/humourous chapter that comes before The Power Of Madonna, and we all know what happens there...

**Artie Tina Gleek: **No, chocolate and peanut butter is not weird at all - Reece's Peanut Butter Cups is an example of that!

**Average Everyday Sane Psycho:** You can get kettlecorn ice cream? So cool! I want to try it. I'm now on the look out.

Random Question: If you could pair any two people on Glee together, who would they be?

* * *

Tina was ecstatic. She was so happy that not even the looks she got when she walked into school could bring her down. Or the fact that her medication hadn't really kicked in yet and her head hurt like crazy. She kissed Artie goodbye at his locker despite him being worried that he would hurt her (thrilled that now they were a couple again she could do so) and headed towards her locker. She saw Mercedes leaning against it.

Mercedes was waiting at Tina's locker. All Rachel had said was that she was hurt, and when she had texted both Tina and Artie the night before, she had gotten no reply. She was staring down at her phone, about to ask Tina where she was, when she felt a hand on her shoulder and Tina's voice say, "Hey Mercedes."

Mercedes turned and then jumped when she saw Tina's face.

"Holy crap, girl, do you know how worried I've been? What happened to you?" Tina laughed.

"Good morning to you too." Tina began to get her books for her first class.

"Hold up, should you even be at school?" Mercedes asked, tilting Tina's face towards her to look at the bruising.

"Yup, I'm fine. Mrs. Abrams wanted me to stay home, but I can't miss Glee, or math, for that matter, and I didn't show any signs of concussion, so here I am."

"Wait, hold up, Mrs. Abrams? As in, Mrs. Abrams, Artie's mom?" Tina nodded, hiding her face as she put her books into her bag.

"Yes, well, I stayed at Artie's last night because my parents are out of town and Mrs. Abrams was worried when Artie started talking about concussions..."

"You stayed at Artie's house?" Tina really couldn't look at Mercedes now, she was pretty sure she resembled a tomato with how hot her cheeks felt. She finally fixed Mercedes with her best 'so?-what's-your-point?' look and said, "He's my best friend."

Kurt appeared behind Mercedes in time to hear her snort loudly.

"Don't give me that."

"Hey Kurt." Tina said, trying to stop the interrogation. Once Mercedes found out that she had, in fact, slept in the same bed as Artie, there would be no hearing the end of it. Luckily her face seemed to be a big enough distraction.

"Tina Cohen-Chang!" Kurt exclaimed. "You look like you just did three rounds in a boxing ring! Why did you not call me for damage control? What the hell happened?"

"Hockey players." Tina said, shutting her locker. They began to move towards their homeroom.

"You realise that's assault, right?" Kurt said seriously, beginning to get angry.

"No! They didn't hit me." Tina said. "They threw slushie." She told them the story, very, very glad that she could distract Mercedes from her previous tangent.

It wasn't that Tina was ashamed; she just wanted her good news to be hers for the moment. She was still on cloud nine, despite the ache of her head and the pain that shot through her cheek when she made any kind of facial expression. The guy that she had been in love with for a long time had told her that he maybe kind of loved her too. She was happy, and just wanted to have her secret.

But when she finished with, "And Mrs. Abrams didn't want to leave me at home by myself," she realised that she had brought up the subject herself. _Dang it._ Her distraction plan had totally not worked. This was going to be worse.

"Tina stayed at Artie's last night because they are 'best friends.'" Mercedes used air-quotes. Kurt snorted, sounding eerily like Mercedes.

"Yes, and Mr. Shue has _no_ feelings for Ms. Pillsbury." He said sarcastically.

"Are you going to spill, or do we have to go after Artie?" Mercedes asked. "Because believe me, he's easier to corner." Mercedes wasn't bluffing, but she hoped Tina would spill. Artie was a better actor. He hid his emotions much, much better than Tina did; and Tina's blush often said more than she could admit to.

"There's nothing to spill." Tina said. Mercedes' shake of the head made her realise that she hadn't fooled her at all. She sighed. "Seriously, I went to his house, I stayed the night, I'm here." Their teacher entered at that moment, and they stopped talking. Tina just hoped she could get to Artie before they did.

* * *

Kurt and Mercedes found Artie in the choir room before Glee. Kurt was skipping the end of Chemistry, but didn't care too much, and Mercedes and Artie both had a free period.

"Hey guys." Artie said, stopping his playing of his guitar. "What's up?"

"Not much." Mercedes said, with a grin. It was the grin that made Artie aware that something was up. "So, you and Tina, huh?"

"How did you know?" Artie felt like face-palming the moment those words left his mouth. Kurt and Mercedes were wearing identical grins, and high-fived.

"You just told us." Kurt said, clapping his hands together in glee. They laughed together as Tina came rushing into the choir room.

"Artie – oh." She stopped in the doorway as she saw Mercedes' and Kurt's facial expressions.

"There's nothing to spill, huh, Tina?" Mercedes said.

"Um, what?" Tina asked, hoping that playing dumb would get her out of this. Artie shook his head.

"I basically just told them that we're together." He said. Mercedes and Kurt both let out squeals.

"About time!" Kurt said. "I was beginning to think that we would have to play match maker."

The bell rang then, and students started to fill the halls. Mike was the first one to enter the room, and made his way over to Tina.

"How are you feeling?" He asked, taking a seat on her other side. Artie had wheeled up next to her chair.

"I'm good." Tina said, smiling. "Thanks again, Mike."

"It's okay. But I've got to stop finding you in the hallway!" He grinned. Rachel entered the room too, with Quinn and Matt following behind her. Matt seemed to be teasing Quinn about something because she exclaimed, "That is not true!" and hit his arm, before they both started laughing. Their laughter died, however when they saw Tina's face.

Matt dropped his bag in shock.

"Tina, what happened?" Quinn asked, rushing across the room. Tina laughed.

"You should see the other guy." She joked. They all laughed but Matt. His face was set in a stony expression.

"We're so lucky it's _after_ sectionals," Tina heard Rachel mutter.

"Hockey players, slushie and doorknobs don't mix very well." Tina said, shrugging. "I'm fine."

"You are most certainly not _fine_." Matt muttered. Finn, Santana, Brittany and Puck entered the room too. Brittany didn't even notice, skipping happily up to the back row of chairs. Santana stopped dead, causing Puck to run into her, and Finn stopped too, looking confused.

Puck's reaction took everyone off guard. He took one look at Tina's face, and his fists clenched.

"Who are we beating up?" He growled. Santana nodded beside him.

"It was an accident, guys. I slipped in slushie and did a face-plant into a doorknob. It's _fine_." Finn seemed to accept this, but Puck shook his head.

"Who threw the slushie?" He said. Tina looked scared at his tone of voice, so he breathed in and out and asked more calmly, "Was it Karofsky?" Tina shook her head.

"It really, really doesn't matter." She said. "Shit happens. Let's just move on."

"It was Allan." Artie said. Tina turned to shake her head at him, but he continued. "After Glee yesterday. Mike and Rachel found her."

Puck spun on his heel, Mike, Matt and Artie moving to follow him. Tina watched the silent communication that seemed to run through them, and Finn stood up too, Kurt close behind him as they moved towards the door.

"Guys, really. Don't. It's not worth it."

"No one messes with the Glee club." Puck said. "And beating up a girl, that's just low." Rachel snorted, in a very un-Rachel-like way.

"And who was the main culprit for the aptly named 'slushie facials' before?" she said as Tina cried, "Seriously, guys it was the _doorknob_. Are you going to beat up the janitor's closet too?" Puck looked as though he was seriously considering it.

"Whoa guys, what?" Mr. Shue was standing in the doorway, wondering why on earth the entirety of the male population of Glee, plus Santana, was about to leave; and why on earth Tina was talking about beating up the janitor's closet.

"Look." Mike said, moving to the side so that Mr. Shue got a clear view of the girls, gathered in a loose circle next to Tina.

"Tina what happened?" Tina sighed. Everyone had been asking her that all day.

"Slipped in slushie, hit the doorknob." She said, her short version of the story perfected due to all the sudden interest in her face.

"It was hockey players." Finn said. Puck nodded.

"It's clobbering time." He said. Tina snorted.

"Was that seriously a Fantastic Four reference?" She said.

"Well, you recognised it." He retorted weakly.

"I'm dating him." Tina pointed at Artie. "At least I have an excuse." Then she realised what she said.

Artie's "Hey!" was cut off by Brittany' and Quinn's squeals of delight.

"About time!" Quinn cried out. Tina blushed red. This couldn't be happening.

"Pay up." Mercedes held out her hand to Puck. Tina blushed even redder, but wasn't exactly surprised; she and Mercedes had made a bet on Rachel and Finn, after all. Brittany had dissolved into giggles, and Matt was laughing too as Artie just covered his face with his hands.

So much for a secret. At least, Tina thought wearily, at least Puck had forgotten about beating up the janitor's closet's doorknob.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Thanks to my wonderful reviewers :D Please do review if you read :)

**Average Everyday Sane Psycho:** Hmmm... Mercedes and Mike and Kurt and Matt? That's sweet :) Also, it totally sucks that Matt isn't going to be in season 2! I'm going to have a huge decision to make once I get to that point of my story...

**Artie Tina Gleek:** Aw, ouch, I hope you feel better soon! I'm glad I could make you feel happier :D and the Regionals episode remains one of my favourites, especially Anyway You Want It/Lovin' Touchin' Squeezin'.

**JustRelax:** Thank you :)! I'm considering an epic revenge plot, and ideas are totally welcome.

Random Question: Favourite Glee song?

So here's the chapter. There's an Artie chapter coming up, so this is more of a filler chapter really, but hopefully it will make you laugh :).

* * *

Matt Rutherford was a pretty laid-back guy. He didn't like to mess in other people's business, and he generally kept his opinion to himself unless asked for it.

Observing life around him was something he liked to do, and there had been quite a bit to observe lately. Firstly there was the drama with Puck and Finn and Quinn and the baby. Although Finn was the nice guy who had saved the day at Sectionals, he sure seemed to be in the middle of all the drama; he also had dated Santana and Brittany, abandoning Rachel, and then suddenly decided he wanted Rachel again. And Matt didn't believe for one second that Rachel had broken up with that Jesse guy for "the sake of the team."Then there was Tina's face; what had happened had stopped the slushie war, but only increased Puck's (and Santana for that matter) desire for revenge. Matt was pretty pissed too; Tina was his friend.

And, unfortunately, after the Glee-bonding attack on the hockey players, the club had been divided again.

It was Puck, probably unsurprisingly, that had (although Matt agreed that it wasn't purposeful) managed to get quite a few members of the club mad at him. Kurt, possibly was a little to blame, for leaving his brand new laptop (a birthday present from his father) open and running at the start of Glee while running to the bathroom. Puck, seeing the laptop, of course, had to investigate.

However, he possibly shouldn't have been so enthusiastic about showing the members of the club who were in the room (Matt himself, Artie, Mike, Quinn and Mercedes) the video that he found. The video of Kurt, Brittany and Tina doing the _Single Ladies_ dance.

Sure, they all knew about the video because Kurt had told them; and then the three had done the dance in their performance for Mr. Schue after Sectionals; but he had not shown them the video. Matt, upon seeing Kurt dressed the way he was in the video, knew why. But it had not occurred to Puck that Tina wouldn't want the video seen either.

He teased her mercilessly, and at first Tina had no idea why Puck was winking at her and saying "Nice legs Stutterfly," in Glee, or singing, "I see you baby, shaking that ass..." in accounting. However she worked it out when Puck asked her if anybody had put a ring on it yet. Kurt had been more upset than Tina, telling Puck that if he 'violated his baby' (this got him a very odd look from Mr. Schue) again then he would 'pull a Tina' (Tina blushed bright red, of course) and kick him with his pointy-toed boots, and wouldn't care that they were Gucci and worth 'more than all your cowboy-plaid shirts combined.' Tina had simply tried to ignore Puck's teasing from then on; but he seemed to realise that what she didn't say, her blush did.

Matt had first started to get to know Tina through his accounting class. They had a tiny ten-person class and because of this, had been assigned what Matt was sure had once been a cupboard as a classroom. He, Puck and Santana had sat at the back and Tina had arrived late the first day. She had taken the last available seat next to Jacob Ben Israel. He hadn't known her as anything but the "Goth loser in Glee Club" or "Stutterfly" as Puck and Santana referred to her.

As the weeks passed slowly by and he had joined Glee Club, he had gotten to know her better; sung with her, danced with her, talked occasionally and laughed and joked with her. He'd formed that oddly protective Glee bond that made him clench his fists when he saw Tina in the hall cleaning slushie off her face, Rachel trying to hide tears or Kurt climbing out of the dumpster.

So when they'd had a classroom change (something to do with Sue Sylvester and her absolute _need_ for extra storage space – Matt didn't get it, the new 'classroom' was almost exactly the same as the first one) he had casually put his feet up on the seat next to him so that when Tina finally turned up he had effectively made sure that the only spare seat in the room was the one beside him.

He had lifted his feet down with a shrug, saving the seat 'accidentally,' but she somehow had seen right through him, and known that he had done it to save her from a gruesome fate with Jacob Ben Israel. She had given him a small, grateful smile and faced the front, completely prepared to be ignored or even laughed about with Puck and Santana to spare his reputation. She'd been shocked when he had leaned over and commented about the classroom change. Recovering quickly, she had asked how exactly this "r-r-renovated closet" was any different from the previous one and it had all started from there.

They had gone through a lot together in accounting; passing notes and 'add-on drawings' through Puck and Santana's 'together' phases (seriously awkward); sitting in between them when they were fighting. When she had been obviously upset about Artie, and explained about her faked stutter, he had made her laugh; and she returned the favour when his girlfriend Lily had broken up with him. The next lesson she had brought in a pack of gummy bears (he had accidentally let slip one day that he loved them and Puck wouldn't let him hear the end of it) and slipped them into his bag.

When he had teased her lightly about the fact that she was acting like a love-sick teenager over Artie, she had responded by humming _Single Ladies_ under her breath and then started doing the actions, making him laugh and say, "Okay, okay, you proved your point." When she came out of her shell, she was so fun-loving, so quick with comebacks, so full of life that it was easy to see why Mike (although he would never admit it) had a crush on this girl. Not that Matt did. Matt had feelings for someone else.

He loved it (guiltily) when Puck and Santana were fighting because he got to sit nearer to Santana; loved to have an excuse to touch her arm or carry her bag for her. But Santana was a manipulator and, like Puck, used people. So he sat next to her or near her and tried to make her laugh, smile or scowl at him before realising that he was teasing her. He tried to make himself accept that this was all she would ever be to him.

Tina, being Tina, guessed almost immediately what was going on. She gave him a knowing grin one lesson, passing him a note that said, "Make a move, Romeo." He had rolled his eyes and written back, "A move on what exactly? Are you flirting with me?" She had blushed bright red when she thought he was serious, and then when she realised he was teasing had slapped his arm and written, "You know what I mean." He had feigned innocence, scribbling back, "I'm not a love-sick fool. What are you on about?" She had just shaken her head, answering a question from the teacher and then written in her scrawling handwriting, "I didn't say you were a fool."

Matt was brought back to earth by the very girl that he had just been thinking about; Tina stormed into their accounting class (the bruises on her face completely healed now and the cut still healing from the accident the week and a half before) her face set in a stony expression. Slamming her bag down angrily, she seated herself heavily in her chair before she pulled out her book, muttering, "I'll give you tighter fitting clothing, selfish, objectifying ass..." Matt choked on the biscuit he had just shoved into his mouth and said, "Wait what?" Tina blushed, obviously unaware that Matt could hear her.

"Uh... nothing." She said, lowering her voice as the teacher entered. Matt raised his eyebrows at her.

"Really, nothing, huh? I could have sworn you just said, 'Tighter fitting clothing.'" Puck leaned over immediately.

"No Puck, I am not wearing the leotard to school." Tina said, getting ready to copy the notes off the board. Puck looked disappointed, and returned to his conversation with Santana. Matt opened his book.

"What's up?" He asked her, his usual conversation starter.

"Artie. Being a jerk." She grumbled. Matt raised his eyebrows. For Tina to simply volunteer information like this, no prying necessary, meant that she must be pretty mad. "He told me, quote 'Ditch the vampire make up,' unquote. And something about tighter fitting clothing." Matt cringed.

"Ouch." He said.

"Yeah, that's what Rachel said."

"Didn't you guys _just_ make up?" Matt asked, confused. Tina nodded, shrugging.

"I hate this." She muttered. "You think you know a person, you know?" Matt could only pat her shoulder gently.

This exchange with Tina did, however, help Matt to understand why Mr. Schue had set Madonna as their assignment of the week. Matt wasn't too thrilled about it; sure, he liked Madonna well enough, but didn't really know many of her songs. He didn't miss the glance Tina shot at Artie when Mr. Schue called the boys out for being sexist, and Quinn's huge smile when he told them to put themselves in the girls' shoes. Matt just shrugged and took it all in stride; he could always search through Mike's mother's enormous collection of CDs with Mike later for a song.

Matt couldn't help but laugh when, at the end of that Glee rehearsal, Puck leaned over to Tina and whispered, "Shake it like a Polaroid picture." While all Tina did was blush and shake her head, Matt saw Tina's knuckles turn white from where she tightened her grip on her knee.

Matt had a feeling that what happened with Truscott was not going to be a one-off if Puck kept going the way he did. He just hoped he was there if, and when, it happened.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N: **Average Everyday Sane Psycho: **Thank you so much for your constant reviews :) I love Dancing With Myself too, but Push It is my absolute favourite. Something that is so cringegiggle, and totally makes my day to listen to it. LOL.

**Artie Tina Gleek:** Also thank you for your reviews on every chapter :) Taking Chances is amazing too. I might start a poll whether Matt should be in my fic though... hmmm, what do you guys think?

Well, here's the next chapter. This one was really, really hard to write; I couldn't see it from Artie's point of view at first, _at all_. Finally, my friend and Quinn (that sounds totally bizarre, considering she's a fictional character...) caused me to have an epiphany... and this is the result.

However, I feel that maybe there should be a Tina chapter before this one; so thoughts and ideas are really welcome.

Also, warning for language in this chapter, just to be safe. Author's note over, and away we go! :D

* * *

Artie knew that he had really screwed up.

If Mercedes' glare or Mr. Schue's comments about sexist behaviour hadn't alerted him to this, he was sure the point would have been well and truly rammed home by Tina's rant in the hallway.

He guessed that he kind of knew how Truscott felt now; although Tina hadn't actually physically attacked him, she'd definitely given him a telling off.

"_I am a person with feelings." _Her words had stuck too. His conscience repeated them over and over, bubbling in the guilt in his stomach. _"I am a powerful woman, and my growing feminism will cut you in half like a righteous blade of equality."_ What had he been thinking, saying what he had said?

He would have kicked himself if he could. Or run into the wall a few times. But since he was sitting in his English class at that exact moment he couldn't.

He really hadn't meant it to come out the way it did. All Artie had actually been trying to do was give Tina a compliment about her part in the _Single Ladies_ video. He had opened his mouth, fully convinced that he was going to say to Tina that she looked good in the video. More than good. Really, really good. And somehow, that had come out as "Ditch the vampire makeup and consider some tighter fitting clothing."

It wasn't even because she was dressed the way she was (although that was definitely a contributing factor); it was how natural she looked without the heavy eye makeup (not that he even minded the eye makeup) and the kind of confident glow that she always had while dancing. (Combined with the leotard).

On top of that, not paying attention to the girls' performance _and _bringing up the stutter again? He had no excuse. That was just stupid, and unsupportive. Mr. Schue had been right; he had really been a jerk.

Artie let his head drop against the top of his desk when he saw the look that Mercedes gave him. He knew that he deserved this. He had felt even worse when, in math the period before, Tina gave him a small (he could tell that it was false) smile from her seat next to him. He had seen her like this before; she was trying to cover the fact that she was hurting. Except usually, she would only wear this mask against the rest of the world. She would talk it out with him, ask for his opinion or advice; seek comfort. Except this time it was his fault.

His teacher's voice broke through his thoughts as she announced that she had to run to the staff room for a minute, and to stay on task. This, of course, meant that the second she was out of the room, pens were put down and people started to talk.

"Why did you do it?" Artie lifted his head off the table top to look at Quinn. Allocated seating meant that she had been placed next to him; Kurt and Mercedes across the room.

Quinn had stopped writing, her elbows leaning on her desk top. He didn't know whether she had developed the ability to read minds (how would she know about what he had said to Tina?), or was talking about something he had no clue about; so remained silent. "Tina told the girls what you said." _Aha_. _That's how she knew_. "Rachel was going on and on about Jesse St Whatever-his-name-is pressuring her and Tina announced that guys don't care about feelings and then told us what you said to her." Artie looked back down at his desk. "I mean, it's obvious how much you care about her." Quinn tapped her pen against her page. "So why act like Puck?"

"I..." Artie looked at her, not really sure why Quinn was so interested. She was Tina's kind-of friend, he knew; and his kind-of friend as well. Nevertheless he still felt intimidated by her; an instinctive reaction to the girl who used to rule the school.

"There has to be a reason." Quinn said, writing another sentence on her paper. They were supposed to be writing an essay on a key theme in _Lord of the Flies_, but so far all Artie had written was the title.

"I don't know." Artie said, honestly. "It just kind of... slipped out." Quinn looked at him, frowning slightly.

"Do you not like the way Tina dresses?" Quinn pressed, as though she hadn't heard his answer. "Although Kurt would disagree, I like it. Her look is very... _her_. Like, she's shy, but she's so brave to wear what she does. She's herself." Artie swallowed.

"I like the way she dresses." He said. He thought about it some more. "She's brave and strong and independent." Quinn looked at him, and he felt uncomfortable under her gaze; she was examining his face now, looking thoughtful. Suddenly, she grinned and leaned forward.

"I got it." She said, smiling widely. "I know why you said those things." Artie looked bemused.

"Well, that makes one of us." He said.

"You feel threatened by her." Quinn leaned back in her seat, arms folded across her chest. She was smiling smugly.

"What?" Artie wasn't expecting this answer.

"Some part of your subconscience, even if you aren't aware of it, is scared that, because she's beautiful and brave and independent, she'll up and leave you. So, to compensate, you, or your subconscience, tried to control her." Artie blinked, thinking. He was kind of mad at Quinn right now. She was a) interfering in his business; b) making his head hurt; and c)... totally and utterly right.

"You're right." He said after a long pause, looking at Quinn again. "I..." He trailed off, unsure of what to say. Quinn leaned forward again, reaching over and taking his hand.

"Artie, I can't speak for Tina. But surely saying stuff like that is only going to hurt your relationship? I mean, I'm just guessing at that." She got a small smile out of him at that, although he still wasn't entirely sure why he was having this conversation with Quinn.

"Why are you being so nice?" He asked her. She shrugged, picking up her pen again and looking back at her paper.

"It's for purely selfish reasons." She said, although her grin was playful. "I hate seeing you fighting. The two of you are like a rock for me. An awkward fishnet-glove-wearing-wheelchair-bound rock." As an afterthought she added, "I blame the hormones." He raised his eyebrows and she pointed her pen at him threateningly. "Tell anyone and it'll be the last thing you do."

Their conversation, however weird it was, was suddenly interrupted by Jacob Ben Israel.

"So I hear you and Tina broke up." He said, pushing his chair away from his desk and sliding it towards Artie's. Artie and Quinn were both taken by surprise; Artie because news of himself and Tina was not usually Jacob's gossip blog-worthy in the slightest (this day was getting seriously bizarre); and Quinn because, seriously, where had he come from?

"What?" Artie said, frowning as he turned in his chair to see that Jacob had his little tape recorder in his hand.

"I have it from a source that you two had a fight in the hallway." Artie frowned, confused. Surely just because Tina was upset with him didn't mean that they had broken up.

"Jacob, surely you have better things to do than gossip about Tina and I." Artie said.

"So you don't deny it?" Jacob persisted. Artie opened his mouth to reply but Quinn had already started speaking.

"Jacob." She said, her voice sickly-sweet, (warning bells went off in Artie's head; that voice meant trouble), "I think you have work to do." She pointed at the almost-blank piece of paper on Jacob's desk. Jacob ignored her and continued talking to Artie (the alarm bells went onto high alert), saying "Can you give my readers a comment?"

"Jacob." Quinn's tone was less than friendly now; icy and cold. "Back off and leave Artie alone."

"Was I talking to you Preggo?" Jacob said to Quinn. "You can't tell me what to do, you're not head Cheerio anymore." Artie flinched, looking between Quinn and Jacob. He hoped that Jacob knew what he was in for.

Sure enough, Quinn didn't disappoint.

"Jacob. Ben. Israel." She growled, her hand tightening around her pen. "I have a baby sitting on my bladder right now, and I really need to pee. Combine that with the fact that I am craving lemon meringue pie and bacon, _and_ have neither, nor will have either until I get home; which, might I add is, at the moment, Puck's _basement_, which involves walking down stairs to get to and this not particularly fun now that my feet are partially obscured from my view; and you have a very crabby _former _Head Cheerio. So unless you want me to smack you into next week, which, rest assured, I will do; I would back off _now_."

"Wait, I didn't get that, can you repeat?" Jacob asked, eagerly holding out the tape recorder. Artie raised his eyebrows at Jacob's daring; Quinn looked like she was seriously going to do what she had threatened, and snarled, "_Don't _fuckingmess with me."

Jacob, as cliché as it was, was saved by the bell. He hurried out the door, away from the look on Quinn's face and into the growing crowd of students.

The teacher still hadn't returned, and so Artie and Quinn both high-tailed it out of there before she could reappear and give them homework. Moving into the hall, Artie took Quinn's folder from her hands and carried it for her. Reaching her locker, he reached up and squeezed her arm gently.

"Thanks, Quinn."


	16. Chapter 16

A/N: Okay, so this chapter is mostly cheese. Cringeworthy, but hopefully not _too_ corny... Songs mentioned in this chapter are _Dynamite, _by Taio Cruz; _Blah Blah Blah_, by Ke$ha; and _Get Down Hit The Floor, _by Twista ft. Pitbull.

**Average Everyday Sane Psycho:** When I get inspiration from music, it's mainly like what happens in this chapter. (Which could be good or bad). Thanks for your review :D

**Artie Tina Gleek:** Hmmm. I like the idea of Matt leaving and then returning. I've already written parts that are closer to the end (I wrote them before Season 2 spoilers) and Matt's in them. So I don't really want to change his part to Sam. Speaking of, I'll probably have to add Sam... Thank you for reviewing :D

**JustRelax:** I really like Quinn's character, so more upcoming Quinn-explanations :)

And to all those who have read, thank you for reading :)! Please drop in a review if you can because they really do help me to be inspired. Requests are also welcomed.

Random Question: If you could have one wish, what would it be for?

* * *

Finn Hudson didn't like the state of Glee Club at the moment. The unhappiness was annoying, and the low morale (as Mr. Schue called it) amongst the girls was bringing the whole club down.

He had said "We have to make it right with the girls," after singing with the rest of the guys, and truly meant every single one of those words.

But it was the next day, in Glee, and he could see that nothing had really changed. He himself hadn't been able to get a chance to talk to Rachel; she seemed to be avoiding him. And there were still clear divisions between other members of the club too.

Quinn was seated with Kurt and Mercedes between Artie and Tina, her back firmly turned towards Puck. Rachel moved closer to Jesse (who had actually transferred because he cared about her "more than winning another national title"; Finn didn't believe him at all) as Finn walked into the room, and Santana seemed to look away from him purposely. The only point of normalcy in the room was Mike and Matt's silent game of 007. And Brittany's confused facial expression as she said to Santana, "But then, how do they get the cookies into the packet in the first place?"

Finn frowned, trying to think of a way to reunite everyone. He turned to the thing that usually did the trick; music. Spying the set of speakers on Mr. Schue's desk, he fished out his iPod and plugged it in. Rachel gave him a weird look as music started to play, and Finn cried out, "Dance off!"

All it took was "I throw my hands up in the air sometimes!" and Mike was on his feet, Matt following soon after. Brittany giggled and jumped up too, pulling (a pretending to act reluctant) Santana. Mike started off dancing along with Matt against Santana and Brittany, and when Mercedes let Kurt pull her to her feet, the two joined in. Rachel stood up, watching as Jesse spun in a circle and beckoned towards her.

Tina was up next, rapping along, to Finn's amusement and Quinn pushed Artie's chair to the middle of the loosely formed circle. Seeing Puck sitting by himself, Brittany yelled out, "Break dance, Puck!" He smirked at her and sauntered into the circle too.

Rachel tapped Finn on the shoulder and said, "You be the judge." He agreed, mostly because he knew he wasn't going to dance without taking someone out, but also because Rachel was actually speaking to him.

"Dance off: one on one." He called out. "First up, Matt and Santana." Santana raised an eyebrow, but moved into the middle of the circle with Matt as the chorus started. Both were good, Finn had to admit, but Matt definitely had a slight edge over her.

"Winner, Matt!" Finn announced. "Who challenges him?"

"Bring it!" Kurt laughed as he moved into the circle. Matt out-danced Kurt, and then groaned as Mike said, "Come on then." The two danced for almost the rest of the song, everybody cheering as they got more and more intense. Finn only awarded the victory to Mike after he used the piano stool to back-flip.

"Are you kidding?" Mercedes laughed as Mike pulled her into the circle. She tried, but failed to eliminate the now reigning-champ. Jesse also had a good try as the song was ending; but when Finn proclaimed Mike the winner, mock-bowed to him and said, "Good moves, Chang."

"Zip your lip like a padlock!" Burst out of the speakers and there were giggles from Brittany and Mercedes; the first because she really liked the song, the second because Finn had Ke$ha on his iPod.

Rachel opted to dance with Mike instead of against him and Artie popped a wheelie on his turn. Tina ignored Puck's "Work it, Beyonce!" and instead of attempting to beat him, just mimicked Mike's dance moves the best she could with a cheeky grin on her face. When he did another back-flip she laughed and moved out of the circle. Puck started breakdancing, as per Brittany's request, but even that didn't earn him a victory. Quinn shook her head when Rachel and Jesse moved slightly to let her into the circle.

"Come on Quinn!" Mercedes laughed. Quinn looked nervous, and Mike gently took her hand and pulled her into the circle. He leaned down and whispered something to her, and whatever it was obviously boosted her confidence because she smiled and nodded. Mike sang along with 3Oh3's part of the song, and taking his cue, Quinn joined in with Ke$ha's bit.

"Stop, talk-talk-talking that..." She started to do a dance that resembled the girls' dance in hairography, before dropping low to the ground and pushing up again.

Although her efforts were valiant, Quinn also lost to Mike, and Brittany danced into the circle as the song ended. Both waited, eyeing each other, for the next song.

"Heya Barbie! Hi Ken!" This time everyone started to laugh as Finn scrambled to change the song.

"You have Barbie Girl..." Matt managed to say through his laughter. Finn went bright red and pulled his iPod out of the speakers.

"I've got a song." Brittany said, pulling her own iPod out and plugging it in. Mike grinned as he recognised the music and raised his eyebrows at her.

"Bring it, Britt."

"Bring what?" Brittany asked.

"He means dance, Britt." Santana said. Brittany's confused look faded and she said, "Oh, why didn't you say so?"

As the song said, "Shake it, shake it for me," Brittany laughed and began to do as the song said. Their dance battle was just as intense as Mike and Matt's had been; but when Mike reverted to back-flipping again, Brittany also back-flipped, ending in the splits.

"Winner: Brittany!" Finn cried, laughing as Brittany squealed and jumped around.

Applause alerted everyone to the fact that Mr. Schue had been standing in the doorway watching them.

"Oh, hey Mr. Schue." Finn said. A thought occurred to him. "How long have you been standing there?"

"Long enough to hear your amazing choice in music." Mr. Schue said.

"It was... my cousin." Finn said, not fooling anyone.

* * *

After Glee Tina was stopped by Artie when he put his hand on her arm.

"Tee, can we talk, please?" Tina knew that she would have accepted even if she hadn't looked at those blue eyes; but it struck her, for possibly the thousandth time that she probably couldn't say no to him ever when he looked at her like that. She nodded, sitting herself down on the piano stool and leaning her elbow on the piano.

"Tina..." Artie began, trying to get her to look at him. She wouldn't; afraid that if she did she would just melt and forgive him on the spot. She had to get him to realise that he had hurt her.

"Tina, I'm sorry." Artie said. Tina still didn't look up, pushing one of the piano keys. "I would get down on one knee if I could."

"Why would you propose to me? You don't even like me." At her words, it was as though the full extent of his actions hit him across the face. Not only was he in love with this girl, but this was his best friend. For her to say that he didn't even like her hurt. And gave him a little insight to the pain she was feeling from his words. His stupid, unkind, not thoughtful words. He reached out and gripped her hand, preventing her from pressing the piano key again.

"That's where you're wrong." She finally looked at him, and he tried to put all his emotions into his apology. "I was really rude to you. You're awesome, and you shouldn't change unless you want to." He recognised her 'thinking face' as she processed his words (the one that she used all the time in math). "And if you want to get up on this..." He joked, feeling better when she let out a little laugh, "...just let me know." He waited for her to say something, folding his hands in his lap nervously.

"Yup." She said finally. "That's more like it." They both smiled, and she stood, pressing her lips to his gently. It only took him a second to respond, pulling her into his lap. She let out an 'oof' as she lost her balance slightly, he tightened his grip on her waist instinctively and then they both pulled away to laugh.

"I've missed you." Tina said, making herself comfortable and leaning into him.

"I really am sorry, Tee." He said.

"I know."

And the next day Artie made a point to tell Tina, even while she was covered in purple slushie, that she looked beautiful.


	17. Chapter 17

A/N: **Average Everyday Sane Psycho: **I have finally come up with a storyline for Matt, one which explains his absence, and (maybe) return, other than just _"_he transferred." Yes, it most definately would be cliche, but as my wise friend sitting next to me just said, "But it is a good wish." I agree with her. I wonder who first said that they wished for world peace. Or which beauty pagent girl was the first one to say it.

**Artie Tina Gleek:** My friend who is sitting next to me agrees that Mike should get with someone else. Namely her. Quote, "He can get up on this." Ohhhhh Bubbles. Anyhoo, I hope this extremely fluffy chapter fufills your need for happy Artie/Tina. :D

Random Question: What's the first thing you think of when I say hippopotamus?

This chapter was inspired by **carelesswisdom **from tumblr :). Thank you very much!  
The song in this chapter is _Brown Eyed Girl _by Van Morrison

Read and review :D!

* * *

"I'm worried about Mercedes." Tina said. Her voice came out mumbled, as her head was leaning against Artie's shoulder, tucked where it fit best against his neck. They were curled up on his sofa, Artie lying on his back and taking up the full length of it; Tina snuggled on top of him. They had been watching (well, partly watching, partly making out through the boring bits) _Hitch_ on the movie channel, and both were too comfortable to move.

Artie looked down at her and couldn't help but take in the way her legs were wrapped around his almost protectively. Lying down she was shorter than him; they'd noticed this awhile ago, after the first time they had gone swimming in his pool together (shortly after becoming friends), and their height difference had only increased over the years. She was on the short side, like Rachel, and when he lay down, he was probably almost the same height as Kurt. Artie made his mind focus on her statement.

Mercedes had been worrying them all for the last week or so. She had been refusing to eat, and Tina had eventually gotten it out of her that Ms. Sylvester had told her to lose ten pounds. When Tina had sought out Kurt, and told him in preparation of staging some kind of intervention, he had surprised both Artie and Tina by saying that he had to lose ten pounds too.

It had annoyed Tina, not only the way that her friend was being treated; strong, confident Mercedes was being put down and being made to feel so insecure about herself; but also it made Tina feel insecure herself. She had never been the most self-confident person in the world (_hello_: faked stutter) and the fact that one of her support forces (selfish as that sounded) was falling apart got to her. It was a similar situation with Quinn, she knew; Tina and Quinn counted on Mercedes, whether she knew it or not, because she was such a strong person. She gave them both so much courage.

Tina had been very happy when Mercedes had stuck to the man (or woman in this case) and sung _Beautiful_ at the school pep rally. Every single one of New Directions had stood up with her, and Tina had even seen Santana give Mercedes a hug at the end of it.

Artie had been happy for Mercedes, but what had caught his attention more was the fact that Tina's insecurities were rearing their head at her again. When Mercedes had asked who felt fat, Tina's hand had been one of the first to go in the air, soon after Quinn's. It made Artie's guilt come rushing back over what he had said to her about her clothes. Leaving the gym that day, he had made up his mind to try to get Tina to feel confident. And get her to believe that she was beautiful.

Tina nudged his chest, and he realised that he still hadn't responded to her previous statement.

"Sorry," he said. "I was just thinking about the whole situation with Mercedes. She seems okay now. I mean, she's eating again, _and_ she stood up to Ms. Sylvester..."

"She's still so down about it all." Tina said, moving her arm to wrap it around him again. "I was so mad at Kurt, but I kind of get where he was coming from. They're popular now and he didn't want to lose that. They don't get slushied anymore. Or thrown in the dumpster."

"We don't get slushied that much anymore either. Your face seemed to do the trick." Artie teased. It was true, while they still did get hit occasionally, none of the hockey players dared to throw more than one slushie at a time anymore. Tina laughed, but he realised he probably wasn't helping her confidence, so added, "Your accident ended the slushie war, even if Puck was slightly disappointed." Tina laughed again, making her whole body shake. She pushed herself up on his chest suddenly, leaning on her arms and looking at him.

"We should come up with a way to keep everyone safe from slushies." She said, grinning. "Other than ambushing hockey players. Although that was fun."

"Well, any ideas?" Artie said, playing with a strand of her hair. She lay back down again.

"Well, Mercedes, Kurt, Santana and Brittany are all safe anyway because they're Cheerios." Tina began. "Nobody dares to hit Quinn because she's pregnant."

"Finn's on the basketball team, Mike and Matt don't get noticed enough, and Puck... well, he's Puck." Artie added.

"So that leaves you, me and Rachel." Tina groaned. "Yay us!"

"What if we just stood behind Rachel all the time?" Artie suggested. Tina slapped his chest gently.

"That's really mean." She said, trying and failing to keep a straight face. "A good idea, but mean. And I wouldn't want to be around Rachel 24/7. I love her, but really, she can be a pain in the ass." Tina continued. "Yesterday she was trying to help me with my roller skating. Well, at least that's what I think she was doing." Artie was confused. They had all gone to April Rhode's roller rink because the auditorium was off-limits, but Tina had pushed his chair around the rink almost the whole time so she could lean on it (she was terrible at roller skating, and the one time that he had let Mercedes push his chair so Tina could have a go by herself, she had fallen straight on her butt with a squeal).

Tina seemed to notice his confusion because she said, "While you were eating with Finn and Matt, Mike was trying to help me skate. Except he's almost as bad as I am..." Artie was already laughing; he'd seen Mike do some pretty spectacular wipeouts; his dance skills didn't seem to help him while on wheels. "And we fell over...shut up... and then Rachel... Artie seriously, be quiet... Rachel and Jesse came over and she wouldn't be quiet about how her many years of ballet training helped her balance and suggested that I pick up ballet... Artie, it's not that funny!" She glared as Artie continued to laugh hysterically, now picturing Tina in some kind of hideous pink tutu dancing to Swan Lake. Tina pushed herself off of Artie and stood, folding her arms across her chest.

"Tina, I'm sorry, it's just... you... ballet..." He choked out. Tina glared, tears beginning to fill her eyes. This sobered Artie up almost immediately.

"And why can't I do ballet?" She said. "It's because I'm not thin enough, right?" Tina knew she was probably overreacting (scratch that she was definitely overreacting) but she felt insecure and this whole thing with Mercedes had brought back up so many feelings of not being good enough (Tina blamed this and the fact that it was _that _time of the month and she was really moody) that the tears were just waiting to burst out of her. "I think I should go home." Tina said quietly, turning towards the door.

"Shit, no, Tina wait!" He sat up as she turned back towards him. "I wasn't laughing because I think that you're not thin enough to do ballet." He said, wondering how the situation had spiralled so far out of control. One minute they'd been cuddling, the next he'd upset her. And he wasn't even sure how. She sat down next to where his feet had been on the couch. "It's just ballet dancers... they wear a lot of pink. And you wear a lot of black... and not pink..." He finished, wincing. He was doing a terrible job of explaining himself. Luckily, Tina understood. And felt really bad for making Artie think that he had actually done something wrong.

"I'm sorry." She said, looking ashamed. "I'm just a little on edge lately. It's not your fault. I think me as a ballet dancer is pretty funny too, actually. Can you imagine Rachel's face if I actually took it up?" She moved back into his arms, and he kissed the top of her head gently.

"Tina." He said after sitting with her for a bit longer. An idea had occurred to him.

"Yeah?" She sat up as he transferred himself into his wheelchair.

"Follow me." Tina followed him with a questioning look, but didn't say anything. When they reached his bedroom, he pulled his guitar into his lap. She took a seat on his bed, making herself comfortable.

He'd sung for her before, but now Artie felt a little nervous. What if she didn't like it, or took it the wrong way, or... _stop._ Artie told himself. _This is Tina, calm down._

"You're going to sing me a song?" Tina asked. He grinned and she said, "Okay stupid question."

"Tee, you're not fat. At all. You're beautiful, and kind and funny. So, I, uh, want to sing this to you." Artie took a breath and started to strum the opening notes. He paused for a second, and said, "It's not the same without the drums, but..." Tina laughed.

"Just sing, you doofus." He laughed too and continued playing.

"Hey where did we go? Days when the rains came. Down in the hollow, playin' a new game." Artie knew that Tina hadn't recognised the song yet, but still a smile spread slowly across her face. "Laughing and a-running, hey, hey. Skipping and a-jumping." Artie kept his eyes on Tina as he sang; waiting for the gears to click into place and for her to recognise what he was playing. "In the misty morning fog, with our hearts a-thumping. And you, my brown-eyed girl."

The little gasp that Tina let out alerted Artie to the fact that she had realised what he was playing. "You my, brown-eyed girl." He looked up at her, and she was swaying to the music, a huge smile on her face. "Whatever happened, to Tuesday and so slow. Going down the old mine, with a transistor radio." Tina laughed, a little happy laugh. "Standing in the sunlight laughing, hiding behind a rainbow's wall. Slipping and sliding, all along the water fall, with you. My brown eyed girl." As Artie looked between his guitar and Tina, he noticed that she had tears in her eyes again, except this time he knew that they were happy tears. "You my, brown eyed girl."

She joined in with the next part (Artie knew that it was actually the only part of the song that she knew). "Do you remember when, we used to sing, sha la la la la la la la la la la te da? Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da. La te da." He played the instrumental, and Tina said, "I wish I had a tambourine." Artie laughed and nearly missed his next line. "So hard to find my way, now that I'm all on my own.  
I saw you just the other day, my how you have grown." He raised his eyebrows at her and she pretended to act embarrassed, putting her hands on her cheeks and hunching her shoulders up. "Cast my memory back there, Lord. Sometimes I'm overcome thinking 'bout, making love in the green grass, behind the stadium with you." Predictably, Tina blushed, but she didn't stop smiling. "My brown eyed girl. You my, brown eyed girl." Artie smiled back at her and she joined in again.  
"Do you remember when, we used to sing, sha la la la la la la la la la la te da? Sha la la la la la la la la la la te da."

Artie stopped playing the guitar and sung the last line to her. "My brown-eyed girl." Putting his guitar aside gently, he looked at her with a small smile.

"Thank you." Tina said. "I... thank you so much." He was glad he had moved the guitar, because suddenly Tina had replaced it in his lap, throwing her arms around his neck with such enthusiasm that his chair moved back a few feet and hit his chest of drawers with a small _thud_.

"Hello there." Artie laughed. Tina kissed him passionately, pulling away to say, a little breathlessly, "Thank you so, so much." He blinked, slightly dazed and she looked over his shoulder to check for damage to the drawers.

"Sorry!" She squeaked out, pointing at a dent in the top drawer from where the handles of his chair had hit it. Artie didn't even look at it; his eyes were focused on Tina's face as she looked at him again. She blushed at the intensity of his gaze.

"What? Do I have something on my face?"

"Don't ever think that you're not pretty. Or that you're fat. Because it's not true. Please, Tina. Promise me." Tina looked away.

"I can't promise that." She said quietly. "But I can promise to try not to."

As he leaned in to kiss her again, she felt how fast his heart was pounding against her where her shoulder was resting against his. It sent her stomach into back-flips, knowing that _she_ was the reason that his heart was beating as if he'd run a marathon. She pulled away to breathe and then mumbled against his lips, "I love you." He tucked a strand of purple hair behind her ears, .

"I love you too."


	18. Chapter 18

A/N: I am sorry for the delay in updating; I was on holiday. There may also be sometime between now and the next update; due to exams and the fact that the next pre-written part is quite a way away from this part here, and so I need to bridge the gap.

A massive, huge, enormous, gigantic, as-big-as-the-moon thanks to **Artie Tina Gleek **and **Average Everyday Sane Psycho** for all your reviews. You inspire me when I have writers block, and words cannot express how amazing you are.

So if you are reading (yes, you), please leave a review!

Random Question: Would you dance _Can't Touch This_ in the library?

* * *

Kurt's temper was wearing thin.

Not only had not even made it onto the 'Glist' (the list ranking the Glee club members due to, as Sue Sylvester said, "acts of sexual depravity"), he had had an argument with the woman behind the counter of the local Op-Shop when he had gone to get costumes for his master plan (dancing to _Can't Touch This_ in the library with Brittany, Mercedes, Artie and Tina; each of whom wanted to get onto the Glist – or in Brittany's case, move up it), but now Artie and Tina were now refusing to co-operate with him.

Kurt was dying to know who had come up with the 'Glist,' mostly because he was curious (he knew why he had been left of off it, after all) as to why they would do something like that; but also because he wanted to get onto it. He was sure that causing a scene in the library would get them in enough trouble to do it.

But as he and Brittany tried to help Mercedes with one of the dance steps that she was having particular trouble with, Artie and Tina were doing nothing productive towards their cause. He heard Tina whisper "I'm bored." to Artie from where they were sitting near Kurt, Brittany and Mercedes in the choir room, dressed in their costumes (parachute pants and jackets) as they waiting for Kurt's instructions to go to the library. (Brittany's jacket and pants were a little tight, and Tina's pants had to be safety-pinned because they were too large, but nevertheless they had all been amazed at the speed at which Kurt had come up with costumes.)

Kurt watched them out of the corner of his eye as Brittany said to Mercedes, "Here, move your left leg like this." Artie nodded at Tina and laced his fingers through hers.

"I am too." He said. "They shouldn't be too much longer." Kurt looked at Mercedes and silently agreed with him. While Tina and Artie had picked up the choreography that Brittany and Kurt had taught them, Mercedes had struggled; but she was getting it now. However this left Artie and Tina with nothing to do while Kurt and Brittany were helping Mercedes. Kurt leaned on the piano and watched Mercedes as she finally got one of the steps that had been tripping her.

Kurt looked back at the two of them to see Tina grinning at Artie. He knew that grin; she was up to something.

"Tina – hey!" Artie cried out as she took his glasses and leapt out of his reach.

"Nah, nah-nah, nah, nah-nah, nah-nah, can't touch this." Tina laughed, dancing further out of Artie's reach as he moved to get his glasses back.

"Can you two please stop it? This is crucial to ruin our reputations at this school!" Kurt said, partly in frustration, partly in amusement (mostly in frustration), before turning back to Mercedes.

"Oh, nice one Tina." Artie said, ignoring Kurt and failing to grab Tina's arm. She laughed again, doing dance moves from the dance that Brittany and Kurt had taught them and shaking her butt at him. Kurt showed Mercedes the next part of the dance that she was having trouble with and Brittany moved Mercedes' leg as she figured out what was going wrong.

"Nah, nah-nah, nah, nah-nah, nah-nah, can't touch this." Tina sung again, and Kurt turned to see her laughing as she caused Artie to spin around in a circle while trying to get his glasses. Artie mock-glared at her and wheeled closer, in another attempt to snatch the glasses back.

"Ooo-oooo-ooooo." Tina sung, before squealing in a very un-Tina-like way as Artie almost got her. Kurt snapped his head back to them, getting more and more annoyed.

"Would you to stop flirting and pay attention!" He cried, putting his hands on his hips and giving them his most intimidating death-glare. Both Artie and Tina immediately stopped moving, Tina blushing and hanging her head. Artie used the distraction to inch closer to her and grab her around the waist, pulling the glasses from her hand. She fell backwards with an undignified squawk and he gasped as the air was knocked out of him when her elbow hit him in the stomach. Kurt shook his head and returned his attention to Brittany and Mercedes, the former of whom was doing the moonwalk across the floor, the latter watching Artie and Tina with amusement.

"I think I'm good now, Kurt." Mercedes said. "Look." She started to dance the dance from the beginning again.

"Sorry! Are you okay?" Kurt heard Tina say. He turned back to watch her put a hand on Artie's cheek. Artie nodded, putting his glasses back on. "Okay then!" Tina leaned back across his lap with a cheeky grin; her legs over one armrest of his chair, her back against the other. Kurt turned his attention back to Mercedes, who was getting the steps right.

"Stealing my glasses was mean." Kurt heard Artie say, and turned to shoot them a 'shut-up-you're-distracting-me' look.

"Oh, okay then." Tina said quietly, giving Kurt an apologetic look as she lowered her voice. "Let me edit the song." She mock-cleared her throat and sung quietly, in an attempt to not attract Kurt's wrath, "Nah, nah-nah, nah, nah-nah, nah-nah, can't touch this. Except for you. You can." She grinned up at Artie and he leaned down to kiss her. Kurt cleared his throat loudly, his annoyance finally getting the better of him. Why were they not taking this seriously?

"For the love of Gucci, can't you two _not_ act like hormonal teenagers for _one minute_! I'm surprised that you're not on the Glist already!"

* * *

The library plan had failed, crashed and burned, and so had Artie's idea of Kurt confessing that they had posted the _Physical_ video. Tina hadn't minded too much though, she had only really gone along with the plans because Kurt, Mercedes and then Brittany had wanted to have bad reputations so badly. Dancing to MC Hammer had been fun, and she had gotten to know Brittany quite a bit better. They had arranged to have a sleepover with Mercedes on the weekend.

What Tina really wanted to know was who had posted the list. She was pretty sure that she could rule out the five of them who had danced in the library; they had been willing to go to such extremes to actually get on the list (or higher up it, in Brittany's case). Rachel she ruled out immediately, mostly due to the fact that she was last on the list, but also because it wouldn't be like Rachel to make a list like that. Tina highly doubted that it was Matt or Santana (they had had a huge discussion about it in accounting the day that the list got posted) and even though she had seen Puck putting the list up in the hallway, she believed him when he said that he had been moving it. Puck would own up to the Glist; he would see it as "losing his masculinity" (Puck's words, not Tina's) not to. That left Finn, Jesse, Mike and Quinn; and Tina didn't have a clue about which one of them had done it.

While tempted to just blame Jesse for it (easy as he was the newcomer), Tina was determined to discover who had done it. So during their English class 'discussion time,' she turned to Mike.

"Who do you think posted the Glist?" Mike shrugged.

"It could have been anyone." He said. Tina shook her head.

"I've been thinking about it." She said, and then explained her reasoning behind who could and could not have done it. Mike cracked up laughing at the thought of the parachute pants and the library dance, but seemed a little disappointed that he hadn't been invited too.

"So you're going to interrogate those on your 'maybe' list?" Mike said. "It wasn't me." Tina narrowed her eyes.

"Why should I believe you? You promised you wouldn't say anything to Artie about the stutter thing, and you did." Mike swallowed. He hoped that Tina would have forgotten about that. Apparently, she was just saving it for blackmail purposes.

"Why would I do it?" He said. "I have nothing to gain from posting a list like that."

"You had nothing to gain from threatening Artie." Tina persisted.

"You're my friend; I didn't want you to be upset!" Mike said. Tina sighed.

"I just want to know who did it. I don't want to lose Glee."

"Well, who else is on the 'maybe' list, again?"

"Quinn, Finn and Jesse." Tina said, counting on her fingers.

"I bet it was Jesse." Mike said immediately.

"You know what?" Tina said, "That's what I thought too. But now that I think about it, he doesn't know enough about the club to be able to post a list like that. And I can't imagine him asking Rachel about the..." Tina used air-quotes "...'sexual promiscuity' of the club."

"That's true..." Mike said, thinking. "So Finn or Quinn?" Suddenly, it dawned on Tina.

"Oh my God, it was Quinn." She said, tugging at the ends of her hair. "It all makes sense now!"

"No, it doesn't." Mike shook his head.

"Think about it. She's feeling alone, so she put everyone else below her on the list to give herself some kind of confidence. And can you imagine Finn doing something like that?"

"Quinn wouldn't do that." Mike said adamantly.

"Okay, I know that to the guy population of McKinley, Quinn is a saint, but she has a deep bitchy streak." Tina said. Mike rolled his eyes.

"I still don't think she would do something like that." Tina narrowed her eyes at him.

"Why, do you have the hots for her or something?" She was joking, but Mike immediately averted his eyes.

"No! I just... I can't imagine Quinn doing that. And what if it was one of you library-dancers? Any one of you could have done it so that it appeared that it wasn't you. Like a bluff." Tina's mouth dropped open.

"Oh my God, you do!" She squealed, quietening down when her teacher gave her a look.

"Or it could have been Rachel. You said it yourself, nobody would suspect her because she's _Rachel_. She still could have done it. Or what if it was you, Tina, and you're just trying to cover the fact that you did it and -" Mike said, ignoring Tina, who was laughing now.

"Mike and Quinn, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g." She whisper-sung, cutting off the end of Mike's ramble. Mike rolled his eyes.

"Tina, shut up."

"Mrs. Quinn Fabray-Chang." Tina continued, breaking down into more giggles. "It has a nice ring to it."

"Tina." Mike looked at her, eyebrows raised. She looked back at him, and when he looked away first, broke into song again.

"First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes a baby in a baby carriage!" Mike clamped a hand over her mouth.

"Mike Chang what are you doing?" Mrs. Wilson, their teacher, called from the front of the class. Mike withdrew his hand extremely quickly. The cleverest response that he could come up with was an "Uh..."

"Detention, both of you. Come here at lunchtime, my desks need cleaning." She turned her back on them and continued to teach.

"Sorry." Tina whispered, her whole face red. Mike just sighed and ran his hands through his hair. He was going to have to spend lunchtime with Tina, and once she was on the scent of something, she wouldn't give up.

"Fine. I may have a little crush on Quinn. But it's not like there are any straight males in this school that don't."

"'A little crush?'"

"Just drop it Tina." Mike snapped. "Just because you're happy with Wheels doesn't mean that everybody else on the planet is going to be the same, okay? Keep out of my business." The moment the words were out of his mouth, he regretted them. Tina nodded, dropping her gaze and sitting up straight in her seat.

"Tina, I –"

"I get it. I'll stay out of your business. Sorry."

The bell rang, and Tina hurried out.


	19. Chapter 19

Tina was late for detention.

This was because her whole class had been held in during accounting that day; and this in turn was because of Puck and his inability to refrain from back-chatting the teacher. So the moment that they were released, Tina sprinted to her locker and picked up her lunch, before heading in the opposite direction to her English classroom. Hurtling down the hall, Tina spotted Artie waiting next to Rachel's locker. Tina knew that Artie was about to meet Rachel to film part of her _Run Joey Run_ video. She stopped for a second, kissing his cheek and saying extremely quickly "I've got detention with Mike running late love you bye," before running off down the hall again. Artie blinked, slightly confused, yet looking forward to hearing the reason why Tina and Mike had gotten detention. He watched as Tina skidded around a corner and out of sight.

Narrowly missing one of the football players, Tina dashed into the English classroom to see Mike sitting at a desk at the front and Mrs. Wilson standing behind her desk with her arms folded across her chest.

"Ah, Tina. How lovely of you to join us." She said, with a less-than-impressed tone.

"So...sorry..." Tina gasped out. "Class got...held in... Puck..." At Puck's name, Mrs. Wilson nodded in understanding and let the subject drop. She handed Tina a bucket of soapy water and pointed out the rest of the cleaning supplies in a cupboard at the front of the room, before tossing two cloths to Mike.

"Just clean the top of all the desks, please." She said. "I'll be in the staff room if you need me." She picked up the coffee mug from the front of her desk and crossed the hall to the teacher's lounge.

Mike watched as Tina collapsed into one of the chairs, still puffing and panting.

"I need to get fit." She said. Mike, although a little taken aback at how she was ignoring the obvious tension in the room, went along with it.

"Did you run across the school or something?" Tina nodded, pulled a cloth from his hand and dipped it into the bucket.

"Come on, slowpoke, I'm not doing all of this by myself." She started to scrub at a desk at the front of the class which had a large Sharpie drawing of an elephant across the top.

They worked in silence for almost half of lunch, each of them hating it, but neither knowing how to approach the other. Although both quiet by nature, neither of them ever had run out of things to say while in each other's company before. Mike looked over at Tina, and she looked up as well; and they both opened their mouths to speak.

"Tina, I –"

"I'm sorry –" They laughed and Tina said, "You go."

"I'm sorry for snapping at you Tina. It's just, Quinn's with Puck _and_ she's pregnant... and I don't really want to think about it at all, let alone talk about it." Tina nodded her head in understanding.

"You know I'm here, whenever you do want to talk about it. I know you're not really a 'let's gather around the campfire and discuss our emotions' type of person, Mike, but it can help. So whenever you are ready..." Tina continued. "...just let me know." Mike nodded, swallowing.

"I think I want to try. I just... I don't even know how to say this, Tina."

"Just try." Tina said, as she tried to get 'J + S Forever' off a desk-top. "Words. Form a sentence." She laughed. "That's usually the best way to start."

"I didn't even realise that I had... I don't even know... a crush? Romantic feelings? Anyway, I didn't know that I felt that way about her until I got really angry about the way Puck treated her. And then it all sort of clicked into place." Tina nodded. "And I feel, like, guilty?" Mike's statement turned into a question when his voice rose at the end of the sentence. He shook his head. "Because all Quinn needs right now is friends, not anything to complicate her life any further, you know?" Tina let Mike let it all out; it was like she had broken a dam and all the bottled up emotion was being let out. "But it's so hard to watch her with Puck when I know that he doesn't treat her the way she should be treated." Mike continued to scrub at the desk, unaware that he had been cleaning the same spot for over five minutes. "So, oh-wise-and-mighty Tina, what's your advice?"

"I can't tell you what you want to hear." She said quietly. "I can't tell you that it would be a good idea to make a move when Puck's on the scene and Quinn's pregnant and an emotional wreck because of it." Mike nodded. Tina was quiet for a minute. "So, my advice is to either move on, or wait. And I mean wait until after Quinn's had her baby. Right now, just be what she needs; what she wants. Be a friend to her, because, trust me; girls remember that kind of stuff."

"When did you get so wise?" Mike said, half-laughing as he sat down in the chair of the desk that he had been cleaning. "All you used to do was complain about sand in your shoes, and how Ben Jones was the most disgusting and annoying kid on the planet, and that I was pulling your pigtails."

"About the time that you slushied me. Pigtail pulling became old." Tina joked. Mike winced.

"I already apologised for that. You _know_ it was a football initiation rite of passage." Tina laughed, but sobered up quickly, putting a hand on his.

"I'm sorry for being nosy. I know that you know I'm here when you want to talk. I shouldn't have pressured you to talk to me." Mike laughed as Tina hugged him. "But you should know that I'm not going to apologise for teasing you. You're the one who signed up to have another sister, and being a pain in the ass is in my job description." She sat on one of the desks and swung her legs.

"I don't remember signing anything." Mike said, scrubbing at the desk next to Tina's.

"You were heavily intoxicated." Tina laughed.

"No, that was _you_. You're quite a funny drunk, you know." Tina groaned.

"I don't need another person reminding me." She said. "Puck is _never _going to let me forget it."

"_I love you Mercedes!_" Mike said in a bad imitation of Tina. "_I love you Kurt. And I love you Finn._" "Whatever, Mike. I've finished my half." Tina pointed at the desks she had cleaned.

"Speaking of Finn..." Mike said, his eyebrows furrowing as he looked through the glass pane in the door. "He just walked past. And then back the other way."

Tina and Mike went to the door and looked through the glass pane to see Rachel standing behind Artie and his chair; Artie holding a camera. Sure enough, Finn was striding down the hall towards them, mouthing words.  
"Artie and Rachel are working on something for the Glee assignment." Tina said. "But I didn't know Finn was involved." They watched as Rachel came and showed Finn how she wanted him to walk, waving her arms wildly as she did so. Tina stifled a giggle as Artie rolled his eyes and gave Finn a sympathetic glance.

"She's making a video?" Mike watched as Finn walked down the hallway again.

"Yup." Tina said, and they both ducked out of sight as Rachel came close to the door.

"Why do I not have a good feeling about this?" Mike asked.

"Stop being so down about everything. I'm sure it will be amazing."

Tina didn't know how wrong she was.


	20. Chapter 20

A/N: First of all, I must apologise for the insanely long gap between chapters. It's been a very busy time, what with exams coming out my ears and trying to keep up with everything. I've also had the most infuriating case of writer's block. It's very specific - I've managed to type out quite a few future chapters, but not the connections. It does not help in the slightest that there has been so few Artina moments in episodes (which breaks my Artina-shipping heart).

A huge, huge thank you to **Average Everyday Sane Psycho** and **Artie Tina Gleek**, both of whom are amazing. You are both my idols for continuously reviewing - taking that small amount of time to leave me a review really, really helps. Also to **Bubbles** for everything.

If anybody out there reading has any ideas for songs or moments that you would like to see included, between or for any characters, please do tell me. If I find a good moment, I will try my very best to include them.

Sorry for the long note, here's the chapter.

* * *

Brittany Pierce liked white dresses. They were clean and smelled good and when you spun in a circle they fanned out around you.

They also reminded her of wedding dresses, which she loved too - they're long and sometimes covered in ruffles and bows. Her mom still had her wedding dress in the back of her wardrobe, and Brittany loved to try on the matching veil and spin around with it flying out behind her.

White dresses were the reason that she had agreed to be in Rachel's video. When Rachel had asked Brittany if she wanted a chance to be a movie star, playing the part of an angel; she had only been a little curious. But when Rachel said that Brittany could not only wear a white dress, but the matching feather wings as well; she was on board, and even convinced Santana to do it with her. She only had a small role in the video, but still, it had been exciting to film _and _Rachel had bought her a new dress.

Rachel blabbered on for awhile before playing the video, but Brittany wasn't paying attention, and she saw Santana roll her eyes. However, as the lights went down, Santana gripped her arm in excitement and the video started, Brittany was alert and waiting to see herself on the big screen.

And there they were, she and Santana, looking hot in their white dresses. Brittany let out an excited little squeal, which received a Rachel-glare and a 'sssh!' from Mercedes. But when she and Santana were gone, Brittany got distracted by watching everyone else. As Rachel pranced down the hallway, Santana's excitement became mocking, but as soon as Puck showed on the screen, Brittany saw confusion pass over her friend's face, followed by the expression that she pulled whenever Brittany asked how cookies got into packets or why M&Ms weren't called W&Ws.

Quinn looked at Puck with the same expression, but Brittany couldn't see Puck's reaction because he was looking at Quinn. Brittany did see Jesse's reaction however, he looked surprised, raising his eyebrows and sitting up straighter in his seat. Brittany wondered if he and Mr. Schue used the same hair gel. Maybe it was a father and son thing?

Returning her attention to the screen, Brittany noticed a football on Puck's bed. She wondered why there was a football on Puck's bed for a little bit, before coming to the conclusion that it must be his teddy bear, like the little blue teddy bear that Santana had won for her at a carnival one year, and she slept with every night. Also Puck was wearing a bracelet. Brittany giggled, and Finn's head snapped up at the sound. He looked confused also, blinking madly as he then looked between Rachel and Puck.

Then suddenly Rachel was in front of her locker, and Brittany remembered seeing her filming that with Artie. She recognised Gregory, the football player that Rachel banged into while singing, because he had bought her a slushie that day. Brittany still didn't understand why some slushies were for drinking and some for throwing.

Mercedes looked between Finn and Jesse as Jesse appeared on the screen; and then over Mike's shoulder to look at Kurt. Kurt was wearing the look that Brittany had seen him wear when he was trying not to laugh when she had accidentally put chilli sauce on her fries during lunch one day instead of ketchup (Tina, Mercedes and Artie were helping her hide the fries from Coach Sylvester by building a wall out of trays at the next table) and burned her mouth out. Kurt had finally burst out laughing when Brittany had giggled, and Brittany had even convinced Finn to try the hot-chilli-sauce fries as well. Kurt, Brittany and Santana had laughed themselves to tears as Finn almost knocked over the table in search of milk; eventually stealing Tina's from behind him and almost inhaling it in one gulp.

Brittany moved her gaze to Tina at that thought. She and Artie were both watching the video, hands linked together on the armrest of Artie's chair. She couldn't see their faces until Tina looked back at her and gave a small smile, before returning her eyes to the front. Brittany looked up too, taking in the creepy old guy on the screen with a gun. He did a weird little dance, and Brittany looked over at Mike, who had his eyebrows raised, and an amused expression on his face. Matt was just watching the video, a small frown on his face. It looked like the frown he got whenever he tried to explain a chemistry problem to her, or figure out how to untie the knot that she always managed to make un-undoable in her shoelaces.

And then suddenly Jesse turned into Finn on the screen, taking Brittany by surprise. As Finn stood behind Rachel though, Brittany thought she knew why Rachel had used him instead of Jesse; because Finn was so tall, you could see his entire face. If Jesse had been there, it would have been cut off.

As the creepy old guy shot Rachel, Brittany frowned at the fake blood. It looked like ketchup or the chilli-hot-sauce. She felt a squeeze to her arm, and looked at Santana; who was looking around the room now, glancing between Finn, Jesse and the back of Puck's head and then back to the screen again. She had a small smirk on her face, as if she knew something was about to go down between them. Brittany looked as well; Finn looked angry, Puck was shaking his head, and Jesse looked like Mike had the time Brittany had taken out his mailbox by mistake while she was driving. (Mike had exclaimed, "Brittany how on earth did you do that? The mailbox isn't even in the driveway! And we were barely moving!")

Her attention was recaptured by her own face on the screen, in her brand new, white, floaty dress. As the video ended, Rachel clapped frantically, and Brittany and Santana joined in; Santana even adding a little bow which Brittany giggled at. But her excitement about being a big movie star was cut short by Finn crying out, "This is garbage!"

Brittany watched Quinn trace circles on her stomach, something that Brittany had noticed she did when nervous as Puck echoed Finn's statement. Tina had slumped her shoulders down in her seat, leaning into Artie, as if to avoid the confrontation that she was seated in the middle of between Finn and Rachel. Mercedes was biting her lip, and had her hand on Kurt's foot where it rested on the side of her chair. Mike was looking down, and both Matt and Santana were watching, as Jesse joined in too, as if it was _Gossip Girl_ or _Days Of Our Lives_ (both shows that Brittany loved) and they couldn't tear their eyes away. Brittany half-wanted to hide under her pillows like she used to when she heard thunderstorms or her parents fighting when she was little, and half-wanted to watch like Santana and Matt. She didn't get to choose; Finn stormed out with Jesse following close behind. Mr. Schue shook his head and declared Glee over for the day.

As they were leaving, Mercedes muttered, "So much drama." Santana nodded, and let out a little laugh.

"You were really good in Rachel's movie, San. But Rachel isn't really a hot-slutty-girl-singer. The song wasn't hot and slutty enough for that." Brittany said seriously, as she thought of what Finn had said. She smiled as Santana linked their pinkies together.

"So were you, Bee." Santana snorted. "And no, the dwarf isn't a hot-slutty-girl-singer." She paused to pick up her bag and said, "Your house or mine today?"

"Mine!" Brittany said excitedly, happy that she was still Santana's bee, even though everybody seemed to be mad at Rachel and hate her own special part in the video. (She wasn't entirely sure why Santana called her bee – she just always had – because she didn't have stripes or wings, but she did like flowers, so maybe that was why).

She heard Artie say, "I thought all the guys knew that they were all in the video," in a low voice to Tina as they moved out the door behind Brittany and Santana.

"It's going to take a lot of apologising to get herself out of this one." Tina murmured back. Santana snorted quietly beside her.

"You sound like a pig when you do that." Brittany said. Santana raised her eyebrows. "What?" Brittany continued. "Pigs are cute."

"Want to know a secret?" Santana said, as they headed out the doors to her car. Brittany nodded excitedly, she loved secrets.

"I promise I won't tell." Santana leaned over to whisper in her ear.

"You're cute too, Bee."

Brittany loved white dresses. But she loved being Santana's bee more.


End file.
